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A Parsi Girl 



The Education of 
the Women of India 



i^ 



y.^ By 
MINNA G/^^COWAN, M.A. (t.c.d.) 

Girton College 



ILLUSTRATED 




Fleming H. Revell Company 

New York Chicago Toronto 



Preface 

It has been well said that no Western should 
attempt to make any general statement about 
inscrutable India ; the most he can venture to 
say is, that " in certain places certain things 
which he saw may possibly have been what he 
thought they really were." The present volume 
is therefore based upon appearances which may 
or may not have represented reality, upon con- 
versations with Government officials, missionaries 
and Indian friends, who kindly gave of their 
leisure to a stranger, and upon the study of 
Government Reports. Where any generalization 
has been made, the writer trusts it will be taken 
with the reservations which a very brief residence 
in the East renders needful. If the book help 
the women of the West to realize how critical 
is the present evolutionary period in the educa- 
tion of the women of India, especially in its 

5 



6 Preface 

relation to constructive Christianity, it will not 
have failed of its purpose. 

My thanks are specially due to Miss Richardson 
and Miss M'Dougall of Westfield College for 
aid in revision, to many friends for their unstinted 
help, and to the Faculty of Advocates for the use 
of their Library. M. G. C. 

Edinburgh, July 1912. 



XLO 
the 

G. A. 



Contents 



CHAPTER 

I. Introduction 
IT. Historical Survey 

III. Burma .... 

IV. Eastern Bengal and Assam 
V. Bengal .... 



VI. Interesting Institutions in the United 
Provinces and the Punjab 

VII. Sidelights on some Native States 

VIII. Bombay 

IX. University Education . 

X. The Religious Element in Education 

XI. Conclusion 

Bibliography 

Index 



13 
29 

60 

78 
100 

129 
146 
160 
192 
223 
244 
253 
254 



Illustrations 



A Parsi Girl Frontispiece 

Ori'OSITE PAGE 

Government Examination of Girls, Calcutta . 52 

Girls at St Luke's Mission, Toungoo, Burma . 62 

Ghurka Girl Boarder at S.P.G. Girls' School, 

Mandalay 68 

A Hill School, Eastern Bengal ... 80 

High School Class, Eastern Bengal ... 90 

Four Scholarship Girls. United Free Church 

Mission School for Hindus, Calcutta . . 120 

Standards I. to IV. United Free Church Mission 

School for Hindus, Calcutta . . .126 

The Isabella Thoburn College, Lucknow . . 136 

C.M.S. Middle School, Amritsar — Hoop Drill . 142 

The Alphabet Class, Nasirabad . . .156 

The University Settlement Students' Hostel, 

Bombay ...... 208 

Ludhiana School of Medicine — Hospital Court 

Yard with Patients . . . .216 



Statistical Tables 

TABLE CHAP. PAGE 

I. Management of Girls' Schools. All 

India ..... II. 48 

II. Classification by Race or Creed. AU 

India ..... II. 49 

III. Management of Girls' Schools. 

Burma III. 65 

IV. Classification by Race or Creed. 

Burma III. 70 

V. Comparative Figures. Bengal . IV. 107 

VI. Management of Girls' Schools. 

Bengal . . . . V. 108 

VII. Management of Girls' Schools. 

United Provinces . . . VI. 132 

VIII. Management of Girls' Schools. 

Bombay .... VIII. 168 

IX. Classification by Race or Creed. 

Bombay .... VIII. 169 

X. Diagram of University Courses . IX. 204 

XI. Classification of College Students . IX. 197 
II 



I'AGE 



12 Statistical Tables 

APPENDIX 

A. Matriculation Course . . . .250 

B. Teachers' Certificates . . . .251 

C. Growth of Female Education in India 252 



INTRODUCTION 

" That is true knov/ledge which can make 
Us mortals saintUke, holy, pure. 
The strange thirst of the spirit slake 
And strengthen sufiering to endure." 

TORU DUTT. 

TO write a book on the education of Indian 
women is a prosaic action impelled by 
Western devotion to matter of fact ; it 
would be more fitting to write of the veil of mystic 
romance which has hidden the sorrows and the 
joys of Indian women from the world ; of the 
Rajput women who issued from the royal zenana 
to lead a forlorn cause against their country's 
foes, or passed by hundreds to a fiery death rather 
than touch the conqueror's hand ; of those whose 
intrigue and strategy were redeemed from false- 
ness by underlying devotion to others, of those 
who rose above the symbols of ritual and worship 
to the true perception of the Divine in life. But 
the modem world of the East has its own romance, 
that of the meeting of diverse civilizations, of 

13 



14 Education of Women of India 

the craving for truth and reality, of multitudes 
in the valley of decision. The old chivalry is there 
in a new form. It is not a little thing to open 
the door of self-realization, with its opportunity 
for an even greater selflessness, to the myriads 
of Indian women. The new thought and new 
ideals which are permeating the whole East 
have no more striking phase than their manifesta- 
tion in the life of women. The tentative attitude 
towards growing freedom, the hesitation to enter 
in and possess, the recurring tragedy of those who 
are ahead of their times, and of others for whom 
the new wine is too strong, are only partial 
aspects of a problem which cuts deep into modem 
civilization. The women who live behind the 
veil in India, or who, though without, are utterly 
untouched by modern education and modern 
ideas, are still the vast majority, and there is in 
no sense a Feminist movement such as exists in 
Japan and to a certain extent in China ; still, 
the new type is there, the pioneer in a transitional 
period and the fruit of modern education. A 
Mohammedan lady of good social standing in 
Bombay keeps a school for poor girls in her own 
house, and has completely given up parda ; 
Brahma Samaj ^ ladies are doing excellent work 
on Government Education Committees ; an 
orthodox Hindu lady goes on tour to advocate 
a special system of Hindu schools ; an Arya 

^ An Indian Theistic sect eclectic in character, 
founded by Raja Rammohan Roy in Calcutta, 1828. 
Cp. New Ideas in India — John Morrison, D.D. 



Introduction 15 

Samaj 2 widow staffs a school for high, caste girls in 
her own house with entirely voluntary teachers. 
An excellent Ladies' Magazine is edited by an 
Indian woman graduate in Madras. A Parsi woman 
holds the position of Legal Adviser for parda- 
nashin^ women to the Government of Bengal. 
Indian women are found doing excellent work as 
doctors, and a few as principals of girls' schools. 
It would be easy to multiply examples not only 
of those who have taken up definite professional 
life, but also of others who share in the work and 
interests of their husbands as closely as any 
woman of the West, and who use their social 
influence on the side of progress ; the Maharani 
of Baroda has written a book to interpret to her 
more secluded countrywomen the many phases 
of the Englishwoman's life ; the Begum of Bhopal, 
on her return from the Coronation, summoned 
the Ladies' Club of her capital to exhort them 
once more on the never-failing theme of education 
as the root of all progress ; the Rani of Gondal 
and many other Indian princesses take a personal 
interest in the welfare of their people. The same 
phase is also to be seen in other ranks ; we find 
the orthodox Hindu wife of an Indian Deputy 
Commissioner accompanying him on tour through 
his district, rather than that he should live the 

2 Or Vedic Theistic Association, a patriotic and 
religious sect, chiefly in the United Provinces and the 
Punjab. Founded in 1875 by Dyanand Saraswati. 
Cp. as above. 

Women who remain behind the curtain. 



1 6 Education of Women of India 

greater part of his life apart from her.* Then 
there are the transitional types, women who 
venture thus far and tremble on the brink of 
many complicated problems ; the wives of 
" England-returned " men, whose anglicized 
husbands have done their best to educate them, 
and by leading them painfully through the new 
ideas to bring them, to some extent at least, into 
the " reformed life." ^ There is much that is 
pathetic here, and the tragedy of " The Broken 
Road," has its counterpart to-day in the heart of 
many an Indian girl, who knows that the husband 
who is studying in Britain will, when he returns, 
have entered a new world in which she can never 
share. And so by many stages one passes back 
to the old, the real, India, where the woman 
graduates in suffering, and where the babies seem 
to grow, with no stage of girlhood, into little women 
on whom the burden of life falls heavily. Yet 
who can say whether the influence of these 
" secluded ones " is not even yet the most potent 
factor in modern India ? 

The " advanced ones " have their corporate 
life, and one of the most interesting features in 
India to-day is the number of women's societies 
which are springing up, partly in conjunction 
with European ladies and partly by entirely 
spontaneous effort. The traveller accustomed to 
read of secluded Indian ladies would be surprised 

■* A mong Indian Rajahs and Ryots — Sir Andrew 
H. L. Fraser, K.C.S.I. 

5 Between the Twilights — Cornelia Sorabji. 



Introduction 1 7 

to visit the Princess Mary Victoria Gymkhana in 
Bombay and meet Parsi, Mohammedan and 
Hindu women playing croquet and Badminton, 
or having tea with their friends, and even enter- 
taining men of their acquaintance twice a year. 
It is true that Parsi influence marks off the social 
life of Bombay from that of more conservative 
India, but the Bombay women do not always 
remain in Bombay. Some of the societies are 
linked with the various religious movements, 
others are purely social and educational. One 
society, the Bharat Stri Mahamandal, in the 
United Provinces and in Bengal, has been 
founded by Hindu and Moslem women, but is 
intended to include all sympathizers. Its aim 
is "to form a common centre for all women 
thinkers and co-workers of every race, creed, 
class, and party in India to associate themselves 
together for the progress of humanity." ^ Another, 
the Gujerati Stri Mandal, in Bombay, is a purely 
Hindu society, which aims at bringing many 
of the Gujerati women, who keep par da, into 
contact with other women, and has a definite 
if somewhat ambitious educational programme. 
The Seva Sadan, or Sisters Ministrant, a society 
established in Bombay in 1909, with four branches, 
is under a united committee of Hindu, Moham- 
medan, and Parsi representatives, and aims at 
philanthropic and educational work. " In the 
name of Him, Who has given us so many bene- 

•^ Women in the Modern National Movements of the 
East (S.C.M. Pamphlet), by A. de Seiincourt. 



1 8 Education of Women of India 

dictions, we call upon every woman to become a 
Benediction, and we call upon all who realize 
that India's two great sins are her sin against 
women and her sin against the depressed, 
to help us in creating Sisters Ministrant." ' 
The vow which these Sisters Ministrant are 
called upon to take, is to " look upon life as a 
sacred trust for loving, self-sacrificing service, 
and to do such service. So help me God." It 
is true that when the high idealism of this pro- 
spectus and report are compared with actual fact, 
there is evident a certain lack of reality, character- 
istic of many Indian schemes. Still, good work, 
not unlike that of a London Settlement, is being 
actually done by two splendid women at the 
society's Settlement in Bombay, and idealism 
never fails of its ultimate fruit. 

No account of the corporate life of Indian 
women would be complete without mention of 
the National Indian Association, which, though 
organized from London, has many Indian ladies 
as secretaries or committee members of its Ladies' 
Branches in India. Amongst its many activities 
one of the most effective has been the holding 
of parda lectures and other gatherings for the 
encouragement of education, and scholarships 
are also awarded through it to suitable candidates. 
Apart from all organization, the parda party, 
piure and simple, whether given by the wives of 
Government officials, or by private individuals, 
has its own part to play. The honour of holding 
Seva Sadan Report. 



Introduction 19 

the first of these, as a species of feminine durbar, 
belongs probably to Lady Amherst.^ At the 
request of the famous Baiza Pai, wife of the 
Maharaj of Scindhia, she received a deputation of 
Maratha ladies at Agra in 1827, ^^^ the account 
translated from a Persian letter by one of the 
guests reveals the quaint misconception of all 
things Western under which the deputation 
laboured. The number of Lord Amherst's sup- 
posed wives, the English " nautch girls," who 
played the table with the ivory teeth, the strange 
attitude of the English ladies, reveal a world far 
apart, and though the modern parda party may 
not be needed to-day to dispel such extreme 
delusions, it is still a meeting ground for worlds 
far apart, and the source of many new ideas to 
both English and Indian ladies. These gatherings 
and societies have an extraordinary influence 
especially on those who have fought shy of the 
proffered friendship of the missionaries, or of 
Government educational effort, and they certainly 
count for much in the breaking down of artificial 
barriers to progress. 

The " secluded ones " of the real India have no 
corporate life and belong to no society save that 
of the family. The unit of Indian civilization 
is the family, and where that word includes the 
joint-family to remote degrees, one may perhaps 
faintly understand what the corporate influence of 
the women of the household means, and measure 
it against the impotence of a mere society. 
^ BuJev of India Series — Lord Amherst. 



20 Education of Women of India 

Such in all its variety is the diverse life of the 
women of India to-day, the meeting-place of two 
civilizations, and fraught with untold consequences 
and influences for the future. Hitherto the weight 
of woman's opinion has been conservative and 
religious. " A combination of enforced ignorance 
and overdone religion have not only made women 
in India willing victims of customs unjust and 
hurtful in the highest degree, but it has also made 
them the most formidable because the most effec- 
tive opponents of all change or innovation." ^ But 
signs have not been wanting to show that this 
same influence has been inflammatory of revolu- 
tion and sedition, and instances are given, by a 
recent writer, of ladies' meetings in which 
sympathy was extended even to anarchists who 
had been guilty of murder, and in which ladies 
gathered together in zenanas were urged to do 
all they could to advance a mischievous pro- 
paganda.i^ True, this kind of influence is not 
widespread, but it is a natural result when im- 
pressionable characters are brought into contact 
with ideas which they have not the knowledge 
nor opportunity of weighing aright. There is 
the farther risk of recoil from enforced restraint 
towards the liberty which is not a law unto itself. 
The slavish imitation of the West which has 
marred much of the modern movement in the 

" Speech at the Education Congress, 1897 — G. K. 
Gokhale. 

'" Among Indian Rajahs and Ryots — Sir A. H. L. 
Fraser, K. C.S.I. 



Introduction 21 

past and from which the Swadeshi of to-day- 
is a reaction, is -even more repellent in the life of 
women than of men, and the Indian world would 
lose much of its fascination and charm if instead 
of a rehabilitation of the ancient ideals of woman- 
hood the modern type were to develop merely as 
a denationalized caricature. The classic Indian 
ideal of womanhood, with its wonderful vicarious 
suffering, its selflessness and devotion, is enough 
to make the world weep, yet it may be that it 
has proved throughout the centuries one of the 
subtlest temptations to the strong. " It is a 
terrible thing," writes Sister Nivedita, who made 
the Hindu woman's life her own ; "it dwarfs 
the wife. I often think that it would be good for 
the husbands themselves if their wives were less 
soft and good." But the glory and the grace 
of it may live, and its gentle womanliness trans- 
figure modern life. The Indian woman need 
lose none of those qualities which made her loved 
in Vedic times, but may prove to the world that 
she is conscious of her own heritage and capable 
of choosing only what is good from the life of the 
West. 

History is made quietly, and the modern 
movement for the education of the women of 
India and its guidance along right lines is a 
matter of Imperial importance. On education 
of some sort they will insist. The latest Quin- 
quennial Report (1907) shows an increase in the 
period of over 45 per cent, of the total number of 
girls at school, and since then some districts show 



22 Education of Women of India 

even more.^^ The emphasis at present laid on 
girls' schools is in part the result of the general 
educational ferment in India. One hundred 
years have elapsed since Lord Minto wrote his 
famous letter to the Directors of the East India 
Company, animadverting on the decay of Hindu 
and Mohammedan science and learning ; this 
letter was followed two years later by the decision 
to spend a lac of rupees anually for educational 
purposes, a paltry sum in comparison with the 
Government's educational outlay to-day, yet 
representing the inauguration of a new policy. 
The great principles of the systematic introduction 
of Western learning, with the English language 
as a medium of instruction in the higher stages ; 
of the possession of English education as the 
criterion for Government service ; of the direct 
responsibility of the State for secular instruction 
only, together with the encouragement of voluntary 
effort on other lines by a policy of grants-in-aid, 
have borne fruit far beyond the imagination of 
those who laid them down in the early half of 
last century. A vast system has grown up : 
five Universities with magnificent Government 
and missionary colleges, a network Vof Primary 
and Secondary schools both in British territory 
and the Native States, an Educational Depart- 
ment in every province under a Director of 
Public Instruction, centralized till recently under 
a Director-General, an expenditure in 1907 
of public funds amounting to 559 lacs, and, 
" C^. Diagram, Appendix C. 



Introduction 23 

along with all this, to-day, a grave criticism, 
representing various shades of political and 
religious opinion, of the work done, with a 
questioning of its beneficial influence and of the 
fundamental principles involved. Good results 
there certainly have been, but there is a tendency 
to-day to emphasize the weak points in the 
system rather than to lay stress on the actual 
good done, as always happens in a world bent 
on reform. The main points of the indictment 
brought against the system by current journalism 
are briefly these : an educated minority has 
been created, while only 28.7 per cent, of the 
present generation of boys are at school ; the ranks 
of the lower Government services are overcrowded, 
and disappointed candidates turn only too readily 
to sedition ; the Code tends to an abnormal 
development of the repetitive faculty ; intellect 
is emphasized at the expense of character ; the 
whole tendency is to take away from the Indian 
child his own historical heritage of thought and 
feeling. The Government is now devoting 
careful attention to the whole problem in its 
relation to the general political situation. In 
January 1911, a new Central Department of 
Education was formed, with a representative 
on the Governor-General's Council. Under its 
auspices a special Conference of the higher educa- 
tional officials and others was recently held at 
Allahabad to discuss outlines of future policy, 
with special emphasis on the burning topics 
of Primary education and moral teaching. Lord 



24 Education of Women of India 

Hardinge personally visited incognito some of 
the students' " Messes "12 in Calcutta to see the 
facts with his own eyes. The boon granted at 
the Durbar includes an additional expenditure 
of fifty lacs of rupees for educational purposes. 

Apart from Government there is an expression 
in Indian circles of the sense of crisis, and of the 
need for the extension of popular education. 
Though doubtless engineered by a minority, still 
it is not without value. The Indian National 
Congress and the All-Indian Moslem League 
have passed resolutions in favour of compulsory 
Primary education which show some sense of 
what education really means. " Its universal 
diffusion is a matter of primary importance, for 
literacy is better than illiteracy ; education is 
something more than the mere capacity to read 
and write. It means a keener enjoyment of life 
and a more refined standard of living. It means 
the greater moral and economic efficiency of the 
individual." In March 191 1, Mr Gokhale intro- 
duced his Bill for Compulsory Primary Education 
to the Governor-General's Council, and thereby 
awakened discussion throughout the country. 
Idealistic it certainly is, when the dearth of 
trained teachers is considered and the conser- 
vatism of the real India taken into account, but 
it marks the trend of a certain section of Indian 
opinion. There is, moreover, a movement on 
the part of others for the establishment of 
Mohammedan and Hindu Universities, as a 
!■' Lodgings. 



Introduction 25 

reaction from the secularism of the Government 
institutions. 

It is not the purpose of this book to analyse 
such criticism but merely to show its relation 
to the problem of women's education. To some 
thinkers the most fundamental flaw in the whole 
system has seemed the development of one-half 
of the community far beyond that of the other. 
In spite of recent progress the literate percentage 
is 10.50 for men, and only 10.4 for women ; 1^ 
the removal of this discrepancy might mean the 
raising of the whole of social life and go far towards 
the solution of other problems. Hence in every 
district there are ardent advocates of female 
education. " A realization of the necessity for 
an educated and emancipated womanhood is 
now no longer confined to those sections of the 
community which are directly influenced by 
Christianity, but is laying hold of Eastern nations 
as a whole." ^^ Hardly a Congress or debating 
society exists which does not pass resolutions 
thereon, hardly an Indian journal which does 
not emphasize the importance of the feminine 
factor. " Upon the condition of women depends 
the happiness and prosperity of the homes. Upon 
their fitness will hinge the evolution of our 
character. The schools and universities may 
make us highly intellectual, but as for character 

1^ 191 1 Census Returns. In 1901, 9.8 per cent, men, 
0.07 per cent, women. 

^"^ Women in the Modern National Movements of the 
East (S.C.M. Pamphlet, 1912), A. de Selincourt. 



26 Education of Women of India 

we must look to the home and the home alone. 
Let us frankly say to the Indian girl : ' Here, 
child of God, take this key to the portals of know- 
ledge : it belongs to you by right of birth. Enter 
then fearlessly and behold the beauty and the 
joys it reveals.' "^^ There is nothing more striking 
than the emphasis which is laid in these articles 
on the sanction found in the Vedic classics for 
the education of women and on the modern 
movement as a renaissance, and not an overthrow 
of ancient Aryan ideas. The Mohammedan case 
is a more difficult one to prove, but there are 
writers, such as Ameer Ali, strongly influenced by 
the Christian ideas of the West, who attempt it 
in spite of the Koran. ^^ There is the even bolder 
spirit of those who hold that " though all the 
sacred mantras ^'^ were against it," the education 
of her women is the only solution of India's 
problem. The slow infiltration of the Christian 
ideal of woman has had its effect and the influence 
of missionary educational work has gained an 
increased momentum by the change in the Indian 
attitude. True, the conservative influence is 
still there with much of the old strength, as will 
be indicated in succeeding chapters, not only 
amongst the orthodox but amongst the more 
advanced. An Indian Reform Journal can still 

1* Vedic Quarterly, 191 1. 

1" Koran Sura IV. (Rodwell's edition, Sura, C). 

1'' A secret phrase or password used for initiation 
into Hindu sects. Cp. Primer of Hinduism — J. N. 
Farquhar (C.L.S.). 



Introduction 27 

publish an advertisement of an undergraduate 
who desires a wife of eleven years, educated in 
Hindi and domestic matters. Such are the 
strange anomalies and contradictions of a country 
which defies generalizations. There is, however, 
abundant evidence to show that we have arrived 
at a highly critical period, in which the whole may 
be sacrificed to a part, in which, through lack of 
considering the question in all its bearings, the 
mistakes from which the education of men in 
India has not been wholly free may be repeated 
and intensified in the case of the women, and in 
which the opportunity of developing a national 
system in line with modern educational science 
may be lost. 

The present volume is an attempt to sift this 
evidence in the different localities visited, and to 
give, in so far as is possible to a writer who has 
no expert knowledge of Indian problems, an 
accurate description of the conditions of girls' 
education, and of the three contributing factors, 
the Government, the missionary, and spontaneous 
Indian effort. Where other localities have been 
treated the intention has been to show that the 
same factors and, to a certain extent, the same 
problems prevail. The survey is in no sense 
exhaustive ; the State of Bhopal, which doubtless 
presents many interesting features, is not included. 
The great districts of South India and the Madras . 
Presidency, where women's education is well 
developed, have unfortunately had to be omitted, 
and any generalization made must be taken with 



28 Education of Women of India 

this reserve. The geographical division has been 
adopted, not because the same problems do not 
to a certain extent repeat themselves but because 
of the varying environment in which they are 
cast through diverse religious and social influences. 
A brief historical survey is included to indicate 
the general situation as well as certain outstand- 
ing features which are present throughout the 
whole country. No constructive theory is offered, 
but the need of such in relation to the moving 
life of the East and the impact of Christianity 
upon it is made apparent. 

The moral and religious problem lies at the 
basis of all education and is at the present 
moment that most acutely felt in India. A 
system perfected in every technical detail and 
embracing the whole country would prove a 
disintegrating and disastrous force if it lacked 
the religious basis for the training of character. 
Yet its provision through the highest revelation 
of religion is fraught with immense difficulty in 
a country of diverse and conflicting faiths. A 
secular policy for the education of boys has 
already produced its fruits, and may serve as a 
warning in the new feminine problem. In a 
final chapter this question is touched upon in its 
relation to the ultimate Christianization of Indian 
thought and life. 



II 

HISTORICAL SURVEY 

"We have now before us in that vast congeries of 
people we call India, a long slow march in uneven 
stages through all the centuries from the fifth to the 
twentieth." 

THE history of the education of women in 
India must keep in view the three con- 
flicting ideals of womanhood which have 
dominated Indian society at different epochs. 
These are the Vedic, the Moslem, and the Christian 
or Western. While our main concern is with 
the last, a brief glance into the early ages is 
necessary for a full comprehension of the con- 
flicting currents found in the modern epoch. 
In the early Vedic times women apparently 
enjoyed an equal status with men. There was 
no child marriage, no seclusion in the zenana, 
no sati, no prohibition of the remarriage of widows. 
Ladies of culture composed hymns and per- 
formed sacrifices as men did. Some even re- 
mained unmarried and had their share of the 
paternal property. There are many passages 
in the Brahmanas which show the high esteem 

29 



30 Education of Women of India 

in which women were held. Garga Vachaknavi, 
a learned lady, is mentioned as taking active 
part in a great assembly of learned men summoned 
by Janaka, King of the Videhas, to decide which 
of them would prove the wisest. There is a 
celebrated conversation between Yajnavalkya 
and his learned wife Maitreyi on the possible 
comprehension of the infinite by the finite. ^ 
" One poem, the Bhagwan Manu, prescribes a 
positive punishment for parents who keep away 
from school their boys after five and their girls 
after ten years of their respective ages." ^ It 
would appear, in fact, that girls had some share 
in whatever education was available. 

From about the fifth century b.c. in successive 
Hindu codes we find limiting laws, many of 
which were embodied about a.d. 200 in the 
Code of Manu. Their stringency is only weakened 
by a general recommendation that men " who 
seek their own welfare should always honour 
women on holidays and festivals with gifts of 
ornaments, clothes, and dainty food." The 
possibility of education was closed by the 
exclusion of girls from the initiatory caste rites, 
which served as a prelude to the education of 
boys. 

" The nuptial ceremony is stated to be the 
Vedic sacrament for women and to be equal to 
the initiation, serving the husband equivalent 
to the residence in the house of the teacher, and 

' Cf. Ancient India. R. C. Dutt. 
2 Vedic Quarterly, 191 1. 



Historical Survey 31 

the household duties the same as the daily worship 
of the sacred fire." ^ 

" For women no sacramental rite is performed 
with sacred texts, thus the law is settled ; women 
who are destitute of strength and destitute of 
the knowledge of Vedic texts are as impure as 
falsehood itself, that is a fixed rule." * 

Fixed rules and settled laws do not always 
remain so where women are concerned, and there 
is considerable evidence that the women of the 
upper classes could often read and write, and, 
though the perusal of the sacred literature was 
denied, they certainly read and memorized the 
great popular epics, the Ramayana and the 
Mahabharata, which embody many Indian 
traditions and ideals. In the Ajanta caves, 
which cover a period from the second to the 
seventh century a.d., women are represented as 
engaged in study with books of palm leaves. 
Elsewhere they are referred to as musicians and 
artists. In the dramas of Kalidasa about the 
fifth century the inevitable jest at the expense 
of learned women is current coin. The comic 
character says he must always laugh when he 
hears a woman read Sanskrit or a man sing a 
song.^ Amongst the Rajputs, where status was 
determined by courage not literacy, the women 
held a high position. In the early days of the 

2 Manu, ii. 67. S.B.E. The Vedic Sacrament had for 
its object the study of Vedic texts. 
^ Manu, ix. 18. S.B.E. 
^ India through the Ages. F. A. Steele. 



32 Education of Women of India 

nineteenth century the records of these early 
periods were carefully searched by Indian en- 
thusiasts to produce evidence of former literary 
achievements as an argument for the introduc- 
tion of Western education. A lecture by Pyari 
Chand Mittra, a Government schoolmaster, offers 
an interesting list headed by the famous Lilavati, 
after whom a mathematical treatise of the ninth 
century is named. Either she was the authoress 
thereof,^ or it was specially composed for her 
perusal. " Besides Lilavati there were many 
females of literary and scientific attainments. 
The Tamils boast of having possessed four female 
philosophers : viz. Avyar and her three sisters. 
Avyar was the daughter of one Bhaguvan, a 
Brahman, and outshone all her brothers and 
sisters in learning. ' She was contemporary with 
Kumbur, the author of the Tamil Ramayana, 
and she employed her eloquent pen on various 
subjects, such as astronomy, medicine, and 
geography ; her works of the latter description 
are much admired. Avyar remained a virgin all 
her life, and died much admired for her talents 
in poetry, arts, and sciences.' I am given to 
understand by an intelligent Hindu gentleman, 
that he knew of one Hatta Vidyalancar, a female 
scholar at Benares, who was versed in Smriti ^ and 
Nyaya. We also hear of the literary proficiency 
of the wives of Killidasa and Kornut, Raja of 
Khona, the latter was conversant with astronomy 
and is well known by the sayings she has left 

" India through the Ages. F. A. Steele. 
7 Smriti = tradition (of philosophy) . 



Historical Survey ^^ 

behind ; of Gargu, the wife of Yagnya Valkya, 
who is said to have possessed a good knowledge 
of Yog 8 Shastra." » 

With the Moslem conquests came the parda 
system with its withering influence. Devised 
by Mohammed, according to modern Moslem 
historians, for the protection of women in wild 
and lawless times, it has inculcated distrust of 
their character and capacities. In spite of the 
fact that many Indian women to-day look upon 
the parda as a sign of prestige and of their value 
in their husbands' eyes, the thoughtful observer 
must reckon it, in its ultimate social influence, as 
a symbol of distrust. " A man both night and 
day must keep his wife so much in subjection that 
she by no means be mistress of her own actions ; 
if the wife have her own free will, notwithstanding 
she be sprung of a superior caste, she will yet 
behave amiss " runs a later Hindu code, coupling 
this statement with minute regulations as to 
doors and windows. Isolated Indian women, 
both Hindu, and Moslem are prominent in later 
times, but they by no means represent the 
common life. Their chronicle is written because 
in some way or other they have been exceptional. 
In the thirteenth century it is said of Razia Begum, 
the only woman ruler in her own right of Moslem 
India, that the severest scrutiny of her actions 
could reveal no fault save that she was a woman.^^ 

* System of philosophy. 
9 Calcutta Review, September 1855. 
1" India through the Ages. F. A. Steele. 

C 



34 Education of Women of India 

The Calcutta School Society ascertained in 
1818 that no provision of any kind existed for the 
education of women, and an attempted estimate 
of their general literacy places the figure at one 
in a hundred thousand. The old ideal had so 
utterly vanished, that it needed the touch of 
Western civilization to revive even the concep- 
tion of its former existence. This existence, 
shadowy and faint though it may appear in our 
eyes, is an enormous asset to the new movement 
in a country where everything Aryan and Vedic 
counts for much in the endeavour to create a 
national consciousness. 

The modern epoch is thus in part a Renais- 
sance, in part the introduction once more of the 
ideal of another faith. It will occupy our atten- 
tion in detail and falls naturally into three periods. 
The first dates from 1819, when the Baptist 
Mission in Calcutta started its first school for 
girls, 1^ till 1854, during which time the influence 
was almost entirely that of the women mission- 
aries ; the second, from the famous Educational 
Despatch of 1854 till 1884. is characterized by 
the Government policy of " grants-in-aid " to 
voluntary associations, by the first tentative 
beginnings of direct Government effort, and by 
the expansion of Secondary education under 
missionary auspices ; in the modern period 
dating from the presentation of the report of Sir 
William Hunter's Commission in 1884, the 
Government share in girls' education is much 
^^ History of Missions in India. J. Richter. 



Historical Survey ^^ 

more direct, the spontaneous Indian element 
enters more strongly, and for the first time the 
question of a differentiation in the curriculum 
arises. 

The first period is essentially the day of small 
things. The Danish missionaries of the eighteenth 
century had included girls in their schools but 
there is little record of their doings, and the 
schools organized by Miss Cook in Calcutta (1821) 
and Mrs Wilson in Bombay (1829) were in every 
sense pioneer work. Elsewhere is to be found 
the full story of opposition, of fluctuating desire, 
of tactful consideration and of careful enlistment 
of enlightened Hindu men, who had been touched 
by Dr Duff's educational work, as advocates of 
the cause. The same discrepancy between theory 
and practice which marks the advocacy of some of 
the Indian social reformers of to-day existed then, 
and the movement was by no means an extensive 
one. By 1840, Miss Cook (now Mrs Wilson) records 
about 500 girls at school in Bengal of whom half 
were in her own school. Dr Duff in outhning a 
missionary and educational policy for India, 
points to the need of a great development of the 
education of men before that of women could 
possibly follow. " The education " of the latter 
" on any great national scale must, from the very 
nature of their position, which those only who 
have been in India can at all adequately com- 
prehend, follow in the wake of the enlightened 
education " of the former.12 Events have justified 
12 Biography of Alexander Duff. George Smith. 



^6 Education of Women of India 

this prediction and in many senses it is true that 
the present state of women's education in India 
corresponds to that of the men in 1854. The 
education given by the women missionaries con- 
sisted of such mere rudimentci as were possible 
under the conditions and for the short period 
during which their pupils were available. Simple 
instruction in the Scriptures was also given. 
Madras and other centres followed slowly on the 
same lines. The work was in part linked with 
the ordinary mission work of the Churches and 
in part carried on through separate women's 
societies founded for the purpose in Germany 
and in Scotland. At first the Government atti- 
tude was distinctly negative, except for the 
cordial personal assistance given by Lady Hastings 
to Miss Cook, and the more nominal support of 
her successor Lady Amherst. In 1849, however. 
Lord Dalhousie informed the Bengal Council of 
Education that henceforth its functions were to 
include female education, and the Bethune 
School which had been privately founded by a 
legal member of Council, the Hon. Drinkwater 
Bethune, was brought imder the control of the 
Government. In the Bombay Presidency things 
developed more rapidly and the Parsi influence 
asserted itself in independent effort. The first 
municipal schools for girls were probably started 
in 1850 at Ahmedabad. In 1852 a second 
stage of missionary education was reached 
by the establishment in Calcutta of a Normal 
School for the training of Christian female 



Historical Survey 37 

teachers under the auspices of the society 
known later as the Zenana Bible and Medical 
Mission. The special method adapted to Indian 
conditions was not discovered till 1854, when 
the system of zenana-visiting, combined with 
educational instruction, was inaugurated in 
Calcutta by the Scottish Mission with the help 
of a clever Eurasian lady. Miss Toogood. 

By the great educational charter of 1854, the 
Government adopted the policy of fostering and 
encouraging private effort by a system of grants- 
in-aid to all institutions which could comply with 
certain stipulations as to buildings, number of 
teachers, text-books and type of instruction 
given. Religious instruction might be given but 
did not come within the purview of the Govern- 
ment officials. Departments of Public Instruc- 
tion were formed, Inspectors appointed, and the 
well known scheme of examinations inaugurated. 
It is stated in the Despatch that female education 
shall be given " frank and cordial support." 
" The importance of female education in India 
cannot be over-rated, and we have observed with 
pleasure the evidence which is now afforded of 
an increased desire on the part of many of the 
natives of India to give a good education to their 
daughters. By these means a far greater pro- 
portional impulse is imparted to the educational 
and moral tone of the people than by the educa- 
tion of men." In the main the Government 
adhered to this principle, yet considered it 
prudent to withhold its hand from direct inter- 



38 Education of Women of India 

ference with so delicate a matter. Whereas, in 
order to improve the school system as a whole, 
Government erected boys' schools in many places, 
to serve as models in management and efficiency, 
very few girls' schools were founded. The 
Circular order of 1868, issued under Lord 
Lawrence, states that " unless female schools are 
really and materially supported by voluntary 
aid, they had better not be established at all." 
In pursuance of this policy the Bengal Adminis- 
tration Report for 1881 notes only two Govern- 
ment Primary schools for girls, 719 aided, and 107 
unaided voluntary schools. The women's mis- 
sionary agencies in Calcutta were drawing a 
monthly grant of two thousand rupees for 
educational work. An Inspectress^^ was at this 
time in the service of the local education authority 
for the inspection of parda schools. Her note 
that " every day brings signs that the demand 
for female education in Bengal is slowly advancing 
and extending " marks the rising tide. Two 
exceptions may be noted to this policy ; the 
exceptional activity in the district of the North 
Western Provinces (as they were then called) 
round Agra, and the movement of the Central 
Government under the influence of Miss 
Carpenter. 

The Agra experiment was, however, the 
response of Government to spontaneous Indian 
effort, and as the work of the Hindu pioneer who 

^^ Appointed to the Subordinate Educational Service 
in 1876. India Office Note. 



Historical Survey 39 

was its originator is little known, the following 
account may be quoted.^* 

" Even in our Asiatic Provinces, before the 
breaking out of the troubles, a desire had sprung 
up among the natives to extend the blessings of 
education to women. Gopal Singh, a Hindu 
gentleman, holding under Government the post 
of district Inspector of native schools, had suc- 
ceeded, through his own exertions, in establishing 
upwards of two hundred seminaries for young 
ladies in the Province of Agra which were attended 
by 3800 girls of the best families. By many of 
our countrymen in India, this is regarded rather 
as a social revolution than as an educational 
movement. As a rule, the natives look with 
suspicion on everything which comes from a 
foreigner, for which reason the great efforts made 
by the English have not produced corresponding 
results. ' The establishment of a little school,' 
observes the Pandit, ' which my own daughters 
and those of my immediate friends and relations 
attended at first like a charm, dispelled in a great 
measure the prejudices of my neighbours, and in- 
duced many to send their girls also. This example 
and my constant persuasion and reasoning have 
at last succeeded in inducing many respectable 
inhabitants of other villages to yield.' And so the 
movement bids fair to become national. The 
pupils are nearly all Hindus belonging to the more 
respectable classes. The teachers are all men." 

1* Popular Education in the North Western Provinces. 

— Government Report, i860. 



40 Education of Women of India 

" ' Want of female teachers,' says Gopal Singh, 
' was one great obstacle in the way ; but the 
guardians of the girls composing the respective 
schools pointed out men of an approved character, 
in whom they have full confidence, and I have 
appointed such persons only as teachers ; the 
result is very satisfactory.' " ^^ The Government 
official note on the experiment is that the lack 
of the humanizing influence of trained school 
mistresses, and the impossibility of supervising 
the elderly Pandits were the real causes of the 
failure of the schools and not the Mutiny, which 
hindered the general development of education 
in the province but little. Accordingly the 
attempt was renewed in 1858 by one of the 
masters of the Agra College, a Jat ^^ of good 
family, in co-operation with Government. He 
succeeded in securing " school mistresses of high 
caste and relatives of rich and influential zemin- 
dars," 17 and by 1863, when he was appointed 
special Inspector of female schools, their number 
had increased to 144. The curriculum seems 
to have been somewhat different from that of the 
boys' schools, and the Pandit notes with satis- 
faction : " Girls are possessed of better memories 
and less selfishness than boys." The success and 
extent of the movement seems however to have 
been due to the personal influence of this one man, 
and with the passing of his generation the schools 

^^ Popular Education in the North Western Provinces. 
— Government Report, i860. 

If' An agricultural caste. i" Landowners. 



Historical Survey 41 

degenerated in type. The rapid extension of 
this work under Government into other districts 
necessitated the employment once more of men 
teachers. Four female Normal schools were 
established which appear to have been such only 
in name. Two British Inspectresses were 
appointed whose reports indicate the same 
problems as those of a more modern date. " The 
villagers are not opposed to the schools but they 
value them chiefly as a means of support for 
Brahmans and relatives." ^^ They could not 
believe that the Government were in earnest on 
the subject, when the girls' school was accom- 
modated in a place not more attractive than a 
cow-shed and the boys' in a handsome building. 
In 1876, a drastic reduction of 212 schools took 
place and the question of female education 
dropped into abeyance for a period. The official 
comment thereon was that the State had incurred 
much expense in founding and maintaining these 
schools and that the results had been painfully 
disappointing. Historically, the experiment 
indicates the danger of extending girls' schools 
beyond the desire of the community and beyond 
the possibility of constant supervision on the part 
of British Inspectresses. The solution of the 
ever present problem of a supply of teachers was 
only a temporary one, and the failure of the 
Normal schools was attributed largely to the lack 
of a British superintendent. 

The influence exerted for the education of 
^^ North Western Provinces Report on Education, 1875, 



42 Education of Women of India 

women in India by Mary Carpenter, is a curious 
episode in a life whose main work in England was 
to lead the way to a national system of moral 
rescue and preventive discipline for juvenile 
criminals. During the last decade of her life 
(1867-1877), she visited India four times, and by 
her personal influence and enthusiasm she greatly 
affected the Government attitude and turned the 
rising conviction of the Indian Theistic move- 
ments into the right channels. Her position at 
home secured her a direct hearing in Government 
circles and the rapidity with which she adapted 
her pre-conceived notion of taking some Indian 
girls home for training to the wiser one of female 
Normal schools in India, proved once more her 
extraordinary power of vision in social problems. 
Herself of an intensely religious temperament, the 
revolt from the crudity of much of the orthodox 
religious teaching of the time led her sympathies 
largely in the direction of Unitarianism, and 
believing, like Mountstewart Elphinstone and 
many other Christian Indian statesmen of the 
period, that secular education for India was 
ultimately the more religious policy, she threw 
her whole influence into the establishment of 
schools which would not in any way interfere 
with the religious beliefs of the people. Yet 
her attitude to the mission schools was warmly 
sympathetic and she notes her indebtedness to 
the accumulated experience there.i^ Some further 

^^ Life and Work of Mary Carpenter. J. E. Carpenter, 
1879. 



Historical Survey 43 

provision, however, seemed necessary in the case 
of girls, as the boys of the country had larger 
opportunities and the social system was in danger 
of one-sided development. 2° Her whole energy 
went towards the foundation of female Normal 
schools and in 1867 she secured a grant from the 
Central Government of £1500 per annum for five 
years for the establishment of these schools in 
Bombay and Ahmedabad on condition that an 
equal amount was provided by the native com- 
munity. This stipulation was in accord with the 
previous policy that Government action should 
not in so delicate a matter be in advance of native 
opinion. Mr Dadabhai Nauraji, in a letter to the 
Secretary of State for India, following on a 
memorial from Indians in London, gives a general 
survey of the income derived from the native 
endowments for female education in different 
parts of India at this time. 

Bombay . . . Rupees 40,000 

Punjab . . . ,, 4,321 

Madras . . . „ 234 

Bengal ... „ 132 

North Western Provinces 

It will thus be seen that a certain response existed 
even if only amongst a few advanced sections of 
the population. Further direct contributions 
were not immediately forthcoming, but after 
various memorials a Government grant of £1200 
for five years to each of the capitals of the three 
-'^ Six Months in India. Vol. I., p. 278. M. Carpenter. 



44 Education of Women of India 

Presidencies was ultimately given without this 
special stipulation. Miss Carpenter's scheme for 
the Normal schools laid special emphasis on the 
need of experienced English supervision and 
instruction as the only means whereby the proper 
training could be secured and the dignity of the 
teaching profession for women raised. The 
failure of the so-called Normal schools in the North 
Western Provinces and the success of the mission 
training schools in Calcutta proves the wisdom 
of this policy. The new schools passed through 
various vicissitudes, but ultimately, Miss Carpenter 
had the pleasure of seeing substantial fruit of her 
labours at Ahmedabad, Poona and Madras. Much 
of the interest she had aroused amongst the 
Indian community was doubtless sporadic, and 
many of the schools started were short-lived, but 
in the main her influence on the development of 
women's education in India has counted as a 
dominant factor in the Government policy, in the 
establishment of the National Indian Association 
and in the permanence of certain institutions. 

The activity of Christian missions during this 
period seems extraordinary, when the difficulties 
which hampered Government efforts are con- 
sidered. Moreover, all their educational work 
was handicapped, so far as numbers were con- 
cerned, by the frank and open avowal of the 
desire to win their pupils ultimately for 
Christianity. The missionaries had, however, at 
their command the one essential asset — Western 
women who were willing to give themselves heart 



Historical Survey 45 

and soul to the work. Eight new women's 
societies, both British and American, entered 
India between i860 and 1870, and educational 
work both in zenanas and in schools was their 
most effective means of contact with the people. 
Their pupils in the Primary stages were drawn 
both from the non-Christian population and from 
the orphans and converts in connection with the 
missions. As it was possible to retain the 
Christian girls, and even some of the others for 
longer than the usual period, owing to the 
exclusion of men teachers from the mission 
schools, a Secondary system on identical lines 
with that for boys began to be slowly built up. 
The Inspectress in the North Western Provinces 
notes that almost the only really prosperous 
Middle girls' schools are those in large stations 
superintended by ladies of the missionary 
societies. 21 Miss Carpenter's testimony to the 
schools in Madras and Calcutta is in similar terms. 
Where village schools were attempted they seem 
to have suffered from lack of constant super- 
vision. In 1870, the Isabella Thoburn School, 
Lucknow, was founded, and in 1880, the Sarah 
Tucker School, in Palamcottah. In 1881, the 
Free Church Mission School in Calcutta had the 
satisfaction of passing a successful candidate for the 
First Arts examination. This girl, and a pupil from 
the Bethune School who passed in the same year, 
were the first in all India 22 to accomplish this feat. 

21 North Western Provinces Report on Education, 1877. 

22 Ihid. 



46 Education of Women of India 

The third period, from 1884 to the present 
date, is marked by a definite change in the atti- 
tude of Government. The Educational Com- 
mission of 1882 under Sir WilHam Hunter revealed 
many abuses which had grown up in connection 
with the system in vogue for boys, and also 
showed how little had really been done for girls. 
The recommendation is that girls' schools should 
now receive " special encouragement and 
liberality." The further recommendation of the 
Educational Commission of 1900 is that girls' 
schools should receive liberal grants and that 
the fees should be less rigidly enforced. The 
standards of instruction in the Primary schools 
should be different and have special reference to 
the requirements of home life and to the occupa- 
tions open to women. This policy, emphatically 
reiterated in the Despatch of 1904, has worked 
out differently in the different provinces, as 
is indicated elsewhere. Its main features in the 
last two decades may be said to be the appoint- 
ment from home of experienced educators as 
Inspectresses of Schools in the Indian Educa- 
tional Service, the establishment of model schools 
for girls like those formerly created for boys, in 
districts where the aided schools had not reached 
the required standard or did not satisfy the 
wants of the neighbourhood, and a considerably 
increased financial outlay both in grants and 
direct educational work. In 1907 the total ex- 
penditure amounted to over forty-four lakhs. 
There is no desire in any way to supersede the 



Historical Survey 47 

aided schools, on the contrary, it is recognized 
that the more their work is extended, so long as 
it is really efficient, the better for a country which 
like many others groans under its taxation, and 
where also the limit of desire for female education 
is still easily reached. To efficiency and adequate 
supply, the Government directs its attention. 
The proportion of the schools directly managed 
by the Public Authority to private or aided 
schools may be seen in the accompanying 
table, being slightly over 20.41 per cent, of the 
whole. 

Of the aided schools there is no separate 
official classification to show what proportion 
are managed by Indian committees, and 
what by missionary agencies.-^ Where possible 
this has been indicated from local informa- 
tion in the chapters on the separate pro- 
vinces. The Indian spontaneous element has 
become however much stronger during this 
modern period, not only in Bombay, where it has 
grown steadily since 1847, but also in connection 
with the various Samajes in the Punjab, United 
Provinces and Bengal. The orthodox Hindu 
element is seen in the system of the Mahakali 
Pathshalas^* started in Bengal in 1893, while 
probably the most remarkable feature in the 
Indian movement is the establishment of girls' 

23 The Madras Report alone gives separate figures : 
Secondary schools. Government, 2 Mission, 35 Indian, o 
Primary schools, ,, 208 ,. 523 ,, 331 

2* Pathshala= school. 



48 Education of Women of India 



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Historical Survey 



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50 Education of Women of India 

schools under committees of Indian gentlemen 
representing different faiths. This indigenous 
movement is due in part to a desire to provide a 
good education without direct interference with 
the religion of the pupils, and in part to a reaction 
from the extreme secularism and the Westernizing 
influences of the Government schools. 

Missionary work in education during the 
modern period is marked by continued expansion. 
The former success of mission agencies in taking 
a proportion of their pupils beyond the elemen- 
tary stages is redoubled. Of the forty three 
High Schools for Indian girls, only five in 1907 
were under Government management. " The 
bulk of female Secondary education is provided 
by missionaries." ^^ A glance at the religious 
classification table will show that out of some 
17,000 Indian girls in the High and Middle 
Schools more than 10,000 are Indian Christians, 
while a large proportion of non-Christian pupils 
are also studying in mission schools and colleges. 
The Christian Primary schools in the villages have 
also greatly improved in type through the intro- 
duction in some places of modern eductional 
methods under the careful and regular super- 
vision of trained English managers. 

As we survey the situation as a whole, certain 
problems stand out as common to all India and 
as indicating how critical is the present period 
in relation to the ultimate development of her 
women. These are the extension of Primary 
^T' Quinquennial Survey, 1907. Vol. I., p. 257. 



Historical Survey 51 

education, the retaining of pupils in the higher 
stages, the nationalizing of the curriculum, the 
supply of teachers, and finally the place of the 
religious element in education. 

In spite of the recent rapid increase and the 
steady progress of the last twenty years, the 
percentage of girls of school age attending school 
is only 4.6,^^ and though the next Quinquennial 
Returns will probably show a marked increase, 
the desire for education has still in many places 
to be created. The proportion of girls in the 
Secondary stages is not shown by the number of 
those studying in High and Middle English 
schools, ^9 as many of these are in the Primary 
classes. Only 1208 girls were actually in the 
High School departments in 1907. In that year 
178 girls passed the Matriculation examination. ^^ 

28 Comparative Percentages. In 1886 — 1.6 per cent; 
in 1896 — 2.1 per cent. ; in 1901 — 2.2 per cent. ; in 
1907 — 3.6 per cent. ; in 1910 — 4.6 per cent. 
^ Schools are classified as 
{a) Primary, including Standards I to IV. 
(&) Vernacular Middle, including Standards I to VII. 
(c) Anglo- Vernacular Middle or Middle English, in- 
cluding Standards I to VII. English taught 
from Standard IV. 
{d) High, including Standards I to X. English 
taught from Standard IV and used as a medium 
in the higher stages. 
This classification varies somewhat in the different 
provinces, especially as to the age for using English as a 
medium. (&) is entirely absent from some returns, (c) 
and {d) are often grouped together as secondary schools. 
3' Quinquennial Survey. Vol. I., p. 255. 



52 Education of Women of India 

This small proportion indicates, apart from the 
social and religious customs which cause it, a 
lack of balance in the whole system. Are the 
circumstances under which higher education is 
given not such as commend themselves to the 
Indian mind ? Or is the course of studies pursued 
not of sufficiently practical and educational value 
to prove attractive to Indian women ? Is there 
any foundation for the popular belief that the 
physique of Indian girls is not strong enough for 
a prolonged school course ? These questions 
underlie much of the discussion in the following 
chapters. 

Two causes are apparently at work. In India 
as a whole 42 % of the girl pupils are studying in 
boys' schools. These naturally never proceed 
beyond the Primary stage, as co-education is not, 
except in the hill districts, in accordance with 
Indian ideas. There seems therefore a great 
need for increasing the number of Primary 
schools for girls only, whence the transition to 
the higher stages would be easy. In some 
districts there is practically an unlimited field for 
expansion in this way. Another cause may 
possibly be the difficulty of access to really first- 
class schools for non-Christian girls. The mis- 
sionary societies which have done so much for 
the higher education of boys have, with certain 
exceptions, concentrated their attention on the 
provision of excellent boarding schools for the 
girls of the Christian community rather than 
aiming at developing a parallel system for girls 




3 
o 

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Historical Survey 53 

which would attract the non-Christian element, 
as it has on the men's side. The new Middle 
and High schools which are springing up under 
Government and Indian auspices are an attempt 
to meet this need, but there is undoubtedly room 
for further development. 

The problem of the curriculum is a very subtle 
one. In the early days of the reform of girls' 
education in Great Britain, about 1862, ^^ the 
greatest need seemed to be the adoption of an 
adequate test of knowledge, and that test one 
already recognized, so that there might seem to 
be no lower requirement to suit the supposed 
lower capacity of the feminine mind. The same 
principle worked in the early days of girls' educa- 
tion in India and preparation for Matriculation ^^ 
seemed the only means by which the standard 
could be raised. Whereas in Great Britain the 
leading girls' High schools have developed a 
flexibility and variety of curriculum wherein 
many a " womanly woman " has found her train- 
ing, even if she did not prefer to seek her education 
in one of the numerous excellent private schools, 
the girls' curriculum for Indian girls has been 
stereotyped on masculine lines. If we assume 
that education should prepare for future life, it 
seems clearly wrong that the preparation for 
spheres so totally different as those of Indian men 
and women should be identical. A highly trained 
missionary educator sums up the problem of the 

^1 Renaissance of Girls' Education, A. Zimmern. 
^^ Cf. Appendix A. for curriculum. 



54 Education of Women of India 

Secondary school as follows : — " In spite of the 
fact that less than i % go on to college, the whole 
plan of school education is made to lead up to 
Matriculation and instead of completing a school 
course, the aim is to prepare for a college course 
that is never entered upon." The Inspectress in 
Bombay writes in this connection : — " Such a 
course is harmful, and girls leave these schools 
with weakened physique and very little in the 
way of real culture to compensate for it." An 
Inspectress from Madras also writes : — " The 
examination shadow is to be seen in every room 
from the third form upwards, and it is only with 
the greatest difficulty that sufficient time can be 
snatched for the teaching of a little recitation, 
drawing and drill, in view of the annual inspec- 
tion." In the Presidencies of Madras and 
Bombay a departmental examination is offered 
as alternative to Matriculation for girls, and in 
this such subjects as botany, hygiene, drawing, 
dress-making, cooking, appear as substitutes for 
algebra and geometry, but the schools prefer to 
send up their girls for Matriculation." The 
further question arises not only of the differentia- 
tion of the girls' curriculum from that of the boys' 
but also from that of Western girls. How is Indian 
female education to be brought into close touch 
with Indian environment ? The spontaneous 
Indian movement is in part an attempt to meet 
this problem, while on the other hand it inclines 
to view as a racial affront any suggestion to adapt 
the curriculum to the special needs of girls. The 



Historical Survey ^^ 

Government Inspectresses are closely considering 
the matter and are eager to welcome any construc- 
tive policy which will lessen the danger of creating 
the " female Babu." Several missionaries are 
working hard against the denationalizing ten- 
dencies which in many cases were introduced 
before the reformed educational methods prevailed 
in the West. A conference of English educators 
and Indian missionaries was recently held in 
London to discuss Indian curricula and the 
relation of the educational problems of the East 
and West. It is true that the opinion of Indian 
missionaries is not yet unanimous on the need of 
any alteration, and as the bulk of Secondary 
education is in their hands their co-operation is 
essential. There is however good hope of a sound 
constructive theory being ultimately produced if 
women of sufficient courage, originality and 
ability can be found to plough for a while a lonely 
furrow. The curricula for the Primary schools is 
a different question. Some educators hold it to 
be the saner policy to accept the fact that the 
majority of the girls will only be at school for four 
years, and to adapt the whole course to this 
limitation. A correspondent of the Education 
Commission of the World Missionary Conference 
1910, writes : — " Under such circumstances, 
therefore, the aim should be directed towards a 
sound elementary education in reading, writing 
and arithmetic, a knowledge of domestic economy 
and hygiene, and the formation of a strong moral 
character. The aim, that is, must be determined 



S6 Education of Women of India 

by the opportunities offered for education. It is 
better to reach a lower aim than to try for a higher 
aim and fail altogether. I believe the mistake 
that is made in regard to the education of Hindu 
girls is in attempting to do the impossible. There 
are many subjects which it is extremely desirable 
to teach, but the hmited time during which the 
girls are teachable makes it imperative to con- 
centrate on what is attainable. We should aim, 
therefore, at demonstrating to the people that 
the girls who have been to school become superior 
housewives and mothers ; that what they learn 
is of real value to them in the home ; and above 
all, that their moral character is improved and 
strengthened." ^3 The Primary curriculum has 
already been remodelled to a certain extent. In 
Bengal, Eastern Bengal, and the United Provinces 
separate schemes have been issued. In the two 
former the courses follow the method of the 
Kindergarten in the lower classes, and include 
much nature study, also hygiene, domestic 
economy and sewing. In the United Provinces 
and Bombay the reading-books in use for girls 
are different. These reading-books are often the 
only printed matter which a village girl may ever 
possess, and they are intended to impart a large 
amount of useful information. A reformed cur- 
riculum in the hands of untrained teachers 
becomes, however, a dead letter, perhaps hardly 
less injurious than the mere literacy of former 

'* World Missionary Conference Report. Vol. III. 
p. 51- 



Historical Survey 57 

days, and thus the interdependence of the various 
educational problems is once again illustrated. 
Is it advisable to increase the number of Primary- 
schools, and to adapt their curriculum without an 
adequate supply of trained teachers ? 

The problem of the teacher can be traced since 
the first beginnings in 1820, recurring with the 
same baffling insistency. The modern situation 
shows little advance, except that the absolute 
necessity of having all teachers to some extent 
trained is gradually being recognized, and grants 
are influenced by the degree in which this ideal 
is kept in view. The sources of supply for 
teachers in Indian schools of all grades are women 
from English-speaking countries, Anglo-Indians 
or " country born " English girls from the Hill 
schools, members of the Brahma and Arya Samaj, 
Indian Christians, Parsis, married women of some 
education from the Hindu non-Brahman com- 
munity and lastly " women who have learnt to 
read and write at home." This last class is still 
astonishingly prevalent. Teachers from other 
sources are sometimes procured but, except in 
the case of married women, they are few in 
number. There are also a good many elderly 
pandits teaching in village schools. The trouble 
is that the demand enormously exceeds the supply. 
Here is a dilemma familiar to missions. A 
village school has no teacher ; there is at hand 
a mission pupil, who has finished her Vernacular 
Middle Examination, but has not been trained ; 
too often it ends in the appointment of the girl 



58 Education of Women of India 

to the school, as the committee knows that 
the interval before she marries will be only too 
brief. This illustration applies throughout the 
mission field. The difficulties, moreover, attend- 
ing proper chaperonage of village mistresses are 
enormous. The employment of widows, where 
such are forthcoming, is subject to the same 
difficulty, but ultimately they may with proper 
training and care become a main source of supply. 
The hopes which early theorists have built upon 
the widows of India are to a certain extent already 
justified and may still be confidently cherished. 
As regards the opportunities for training, a special 
circular, issued by the Central Government, in 
1901, has provided a needed stimulus to both 
official and private effort. It is difficult to dis- 
tinguish absolutely between Secondary and 
Primary training,^* as some institutions have a 
few students doing more advanced work than the 
others. On the whole there is a distinct lack of 
provision for the separate Secondary training of 
women teachers ; very few women graduates 
have taken it and the creation of the opportunity 
might create the demand. The students in 
training are mostly Anglo-Indian. The pro- 
vision for Primary training is more adequate, 
though there is still in some instances a lack of 
that co-operation between missionary societies 
which would lead to more efficient work. The 
details of management and religious classification 
of pupils are given on pages 48 and 49. The 
^* Cf. Appendix B. 



Historical Survey 59 

great difficulty in all the Primary training work 
is the lack of preliminary knowledge ; in some 
of the institutes for widows, indeed, this is a 
long forgotten minimum. The influence of the 
previous curriculum upon those who pass on to 
the proper Vernacular Course after the Middle 
Examination is also felt. An experienced teacher 
comments : — " The shadow of prescribed examina- 
tion which hangs over the school course before 
training tends to leave the girls quite unacquainted 
with the newer subjects, and they are not able 
to acquire these during their training course with 
sufficient thoroughness to teach them satisfactorily 
afterwards." 

The inter-relation of these problems needs to 
be borne in mind throughout. It seems in many 
ways as if the whole reform in women's education 
in India must begin from above downwards, 
namely in the High School and College stages 
combined with Secondary training, till the impulse 
imparted thence is felt throughout every grade. 
This subject is specially treated in the chapter 
on the University Education of women. Reform 
further can only come through closer co-operation, 
the need and opportunity for this will be apparent 
in the course of our study of conditions in the 
different provinces. 



Ill 

BURMA 

" Thou son of dewas ; to hear and see much in order 
to acquire knowledge ; to study all science that leads 
not to sin ; to make use of proper language ; to study 
the Law in order to acquire a knowledge of propriety 
of behaviour ; these are blessed things, Dewa, mark 
them well. 

" Thou son of dewas ; to be patient and endure 
suffering ; to rejoice in edifying discourse ; to visit 
the holy men when occasion serves ; to converse on 
religious subjects ; these are blessed things, Dewa, 
mark them well." 

The Mingala-thut. Buddhist Beatitudes. 
(Burma — Sir George Scott), 

IN Burma the ancient ideal of Indian woman- 
hood may still be seen in a somewhat 
purified form. The Buddhist faith which 
gives a touch of gentleness to every relation of 
life, has accentuated its best features and swept 
away many of the laws which hindered its develop- 
ment elsewhere. There is thus very little in the 
position of women in Burma at which even the 
most pronounced feminist could cavil. The woman 
is, if anything, the predominant partner and yet 
few realize that she rules. Gay, blythe and 
debonnaire, the sunniest spot in a sunny scene, 

60 



Burma 6i 

her rainbow-tinted tamein relieved by a short 
white jacket, a coloured scarf across her shoulder, 
and fresh flowers clustering in her dark lustrous 
hair, the Burmese woman is ready any day for 
any problem of life you may choose to propound. 
She is the bargainer, trader and financier of the 
family, and as such her legal and monetary 
position after marriage is well assured. Marriage 
is here an affair of the heart, and it is entered 
upon when young life flows strong in the later 
teens. A woman may not marry without her 
parents' consent before the age of twenty, but 
then if marriage is her wish, why should the 
parents not consent ? Why should anyone 
object to anything which promises to fulfil the 
heart's desire of another So runs a contented 
" laissez faire " policy. And life is not measured 
in terms of money by the Burmese. If education 
has a chance anywhere of being regarded not as 
a means of livelihood but as a leading forth of 
the mind to higher and nobler thoughts, it is here 
in Burma, in consequence of the mental char- 
acteristics of the people. Work beyond what is 
needed for the bare necessaries of life seems 
unnatural, and there is no perpetually rising 
standard of comfort, nor passion for accumulation 
to bind the Burmese to an unceasing wheel of 
toil. He pauses to be glad and to rejoice. The 
art of rejoicing is one of the chief arts of Burma, 
and there is perhaps no country in the world 
where it is carried to such a pitch of perfection. 
No generahzation can be made about any people 



62 Education of Women of India 

unless long years are spent in their midst, but the 
first impressions made by the Burmese on a 
stranger generally confirm the writers who 
characterize them as modern hedonists. There 
are books which show another side of the picture, 
and many sad facts (notably the looseness of the 
marriage tie ^) bear them out, but leaving these 
aside, and turning to our particular problem, we 
find that the girls' schools of Burma are glad and 
happy places. There is an atmosphere of buoy- 
ancy and quiet zest in work which strikes the 
visitor at once, and this testimony is amply borne 
out by the teachers. 

It must, however, be remembered that not all 
girls in school in Burma are Burmese. A large 
proportion of them are drawn from the Karens, 
who occupy the tracts of hill country on the 
frontier of Lower Burma, in Tenasserim, and in 
the Delta of the Irawadi. The gradual civiliza- 
tion and raising of these tribes to the standard 
of the Burmese in general, is on all sides attri- 
buted to the excellent work of the missionaries, 
(the American Baptists and the Anglicans). 
Where Christianity comes its special social results 
follow. There is a Chinese community numbering 
over 40,000 and a strong Mohammedan section, 
not to speak of Hindu immigrants from South 
India, Tamils and Telugus, while the variety of 
the educational problem may be seen in the 

1 " Marriage in Burma is simply concubinage, which 
may terminate at the desire of either party." Christian 
Missions in Burma. W, C. B. Purser. 




Girls at St Luke's Mission, Toungoo, Burma 



Burma 63 

official enumeration of the other races under 
instruction : " Karens, Talaings, Chins, Shans, 
Danus and Inthas, Chinese, Indians, Palaungs 
and Taungthus." The interior of Burma is 
inhabited by about fifty-seven different tribes 
speaking forty different languages. Feminine 
education however is not as yet a matter of 
importance amongst the hill tribes ; apart from 
the Anglo-Indian (Eurasian) schools, which lie 
beyond the province of this book, it affects mainly 
the Burmese, Karen, Chinese and Mohammedan 
communities. 

As regards general literacy, Burma ranks high 
in the provinces of the Empire ; the proportion 
of girls at school to girls of school-going age was 
9.6% in 1910,2 as compared with 4% in 1907 in 
British India as a whole. This distinction is 
however mainly in the Primary stages, for the 
women graduates of Burma can so far be 
numbered on one's fingers. It is also entirely 
confined to those areas which have come into 
touch with modern civilization. There are large 
tracts of hill country where the women are totally 
uneducated, for the Burmese and Karen women 
alone contribute to the high proportion. One 
would however naturally expect to find a well 
developed system of female education throughout 
the various stages, offering possibly an example 
to the other provinces, and it is surprising to find 
that this is not the case. On the contrary there 
is considerably less organization and no such 
2 Public Instruction Report, Burma, 1910. 



64 Education of Women of India 

definite policy in female education as in Eastern 
Bengal. The real reasons for the creditable 
proportion are the later age of marriage, the bright 
temperament and ability of the Burmese girl, the 
complete absence of parda, and the general social 
atmosphere, which permits girls to study un- 
hindered in boys' schools throughout all the 
stages. Thus there are more girls studying in 
boys' schools than in separate ones, viz. 73% 
as compared with 42% over India as a whole. 
The system seems in many ways to work well. 
Of the three contributing factors, which are found 
in every province, the work of Government, the 
spontaneous Indian movement, and missionary 
effort, the last overwhelmingly predominates in 
Burma, especially in the higher stages. 

The policy of the Government, more especially 
as regards girls' schools, has been to encourage, 
guide, and, to a certain extent, finance private 
institutions while undertaking little direct work 
of its own. As will be seen from the accompany- 
ing table, only four institutions are directly under 
the Central Authority. A certain proportion of 
girls may also be found in the Government and 
Municipal Secondary schools for boys ; the 
Primary schools for boys directly under public 
control only number fifteen and the pro- 
portion of girls in them is therefore a 
negligible quantity. No Inspectress or Assistant 
Inspectress has as yet been appointed, partly 
because funds are lacking and also because, apart 
from purely domestic subjects there does not. 



Burma 



65 





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66 Education of Women of India 

seem such a crying need for it as in other parts 
of India. 

The spontaneous Indian element may practic- 
ally be identified with the Buddliist educational 
movement, except for one small Mohammedan 
school in Rangoon where tiny girls learn the 
Koran. To Buddliism and the Buddliist monks 
may be attributed the high standard of literacy 
in Bunna as a whole. Practically every Burmese 
boy knows how to read and ^^Tite, and he has 
learnt it at the monastery.* In the nature of 
things girls are not admitted to these Kyauiigs, 
but there are apparently some parallel schools 
for girls, conducted by nuns. " Besides the 
monastic public schools, there are private schools 
kept by lajnnen and occasionally also by women, 
in which girls as well as boys are taught," ^ The 
private institutions which do not come under 
inspection ai"e mainly of this character. One 
fruit of the recent Buddhist re\'ival is the Empress 
Mctoria Buddhist Girls' School, which owes its 
existence and tone to the energies of MrsHla Oung. 
Her main idea is the combination of modern 
education with definite instruction in Buddliism 
and in this the school differs from all the 
other indigenous girls' schools, where little beyond 
bare literacy can be acquired. Excellent educa- 
tion up to " Anglo-Vernacular Standard VII " 
can be obtained here under competent mistresses 
or masters. An Anglo-Vemacular school has also 

* Missions in Burma, p. 13. W. C. Purser. 
" Burma. M. and B. Ferraxs. 



Burma 67 

recently been opened through private generosity 
for the girls of the Chinese Colony in Rangoon. 
There is naturally no spontaneous and independent 
effort for girls' education among the hill tribes, 
though in many cases they are ready to meet the 
missionary more than half-way. 

The missionary influence in the education of 
girls in Burma is thus a most important one, 
and includes every stage from the Kindergarten 
to Normal training. The chief agencies at work 
are the American Baptist Mission, the Society 
for the Propagation of the Gospel, and the 
Methodist Episcopal Church of America. The 
Roman Catholic educational schemes exist largely 
for the Anglo-Indians and the Tamil immigrants 
from South India. 

The American Baptist Mission dates from the 
time of Judson (1810), and has now in connection 
with it over 70,000 native Christians speaking 
eight different languages. The educational 
scheme for their Christian girls is very thorough, 
and leads up through a system of small village 
schools to their Burmese boarding school in 
Kemmandine, a suburb of Rangoon, and to an 
excellent mixed Karen school, also in Rangoon. 
There is a separate Normal school, and one or two 
especially clever girls are to be found in the 
Matriculation class of the Baptist Boys' High 
School preparing to go to the Mission College. 
A large proportion of the non-Christian girls are 
drawn into these schools by the efficiency of the 
education offered. The centre of the S.P.G. 



68 Education of Women of India 

work is St Mary's School, Rangoon, which dates 
back to 1865, and is a first-class institution in 
every way. It is satisfactory to note that several 
of the staff are former pupils who have returned 
to teach here, after training in the S.P.G. Normal 
School. Some of the staff are Anglo-Indian, but 
a good proportion are Burmese Christians. Two 
English ladies are in charge. There are about 
one hundred boarders, mostly Christian, but 
including some Buddhists, and nearly an equal 
number of non-Christian day scholars. The school 
works under the Government Code, and earns an 
excellent grant. There are three other good S.P.G. 
schools for Burmese or Karen girls which lead 
up to St Mary's. Those at Toungoo and Mandalay 
have a considerable number of boarders. A few of 
these are drawn from the immigrant population — 
as Kansi, the little Ghurka girl in the accompany- 
ing illustration. Her father is a Christian, and 
contributes regularly to her maintenance. The 
poHcy of the S.P.G. Mission seems, so far, rather 
to concentrate on a few good schools than to 
develop much village educational work. The 
Methodist Episcopal schools, like those of the 
S.P.G., are partly for the Anglo-Indian com- 
munity, and partly for the indigenous population. 
In Rangoon they have two good High schools, 
one of each type, and other schools in the country. 
The educational work done by other societies in 
Burma is not extensive ; but, where every unit 
counts, it has its own contribution to make. 
There are arge tracts of hill country round Burma 




Ghurka Girl Boarder at S.P.G. Girls' School, 
Mandalay 



Burma 69 

which are still waiting for missionary advance, and 
where the women are totally uneducated. The 
pioneer work to be done would be of the type 
usual amongst primitive peoples, and might 
produce the same magnificent results as amongst 
the Karens. 

Passing from the organizing agencies to the 
actual pupils, the religious classification as seen 
in the accompanying table is of interest. 

The Anglo-Indian pupils pass through the 
various stages of their education in the High School, 
hence their absence in the statistics of the Primary 
schools. The proportion of Mohammedan girls 
in the High schools is striking, and is possibly due 
to the fact of mixed parentage ; Buddhist freedom 
to a certain extent influences Mohammedan 
customs in Burma. By the new regulations only 
15 % of the places in the " European " schools 
are available for Burmese or Indian girls, and 
these vacancies are eagerly sought after. The 
curriculum pursued in the various schools is laid 
down in the Government Code, and there are no 
schools of any importance which stand apart 
and develop an experimental curriculum of their 
own, as occasionally happens in other provinces. 
Burma has, as yet, no University of her own, and 
the curriculum of the schools with the corre- 
sponding departmental examinations is to a 
certain extent determined in relation to the 
Calcutta Matriculation. Schools are classified as 
" High " in which after a good vernacular 
foundation, the pupils are taken up to Matricula- 



70 Education of Women of India 



6 

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Burma 71 

tion, English being used as a medium of instruc- 
tion in the higher forms ; " Middle Anglo- 
Vernacular," in which English is taught orally 
from the Primary stages and as a written 
language from the fourth class, instruction is 
given only up to the test of the seventh standard, 
and in the latter stages English is used as a 
medium ; " Middle Vernacular," in which pupils 
are taken up to the seventh standard, but no 
English instruction whatever is given ; and 
" Primary," where vernacular education is only 
carried to the fourth standard. 

The curriculum is in many respects very 
similar to that found in schools at home, and is 
open to the usual criticism that its influence is 
denationalizing. A recent order limits the teach- 
ing of English in the first three classes to simple 
conversation lessons, in order that more stress 
may be laid on correct vernacular. The advan- 
tages of the oral method in the hands of a skilled 
teacher are undoubted, but it is a question 
whether the Department have not been somewhat 
premature in this respect. The Kindergarten 
classes are excellently conducted in some schools, 
and every effort is made to keep them as Burmese 
as possible in character. In drawing, a complete 
series of copies based on Burmese design and 
ranging from the most simple to the most 
elaborate, has been prepared and is in extensive 
use. It is when the stage of optional and alter- 
native subjects is reached that the denationalizing 
element enters more strongly. In one High 



72 Education of Women of India 

school visited, only about 25% of the girls were 
taking Burmese, in some forms only one pupil did 
so, while many of them take Latin, and a pre- 
ponderating proportion choose English history as 
being an easy examination subject. The number 
of Anglo-Indian girls partly explains this choice. 
Indian history is a compulsory subject throughout, 
and the Government Code offers ample scope for 
vernacular and classical Oriental study. It is 
the choice of the individual pupil or parents which 
is at fault. Sewing is not a subject which carries 
a Government grant, and excepting at a few of 
the European schools, it is at a low ebb. The 
Principal of the S.P.G. High school acted as 
Inspectress for the Department in this subject 
during 1910 in some twenty-six schools, and 
through her efforts the standard has been to some 
extent raised, but there is a crying need for a 
properly appointed Inspectress, who will develop 
this subject as well as a sound system of in- 
struction in hygiene and domestic economy 
adapted to Burmese conditions. The tendency 
is for the girls to drop off in the higher forms 
at about sixteen years of age, so that very few 
really go up for the Matriculation examination, 
and these mainly with intent to teach. Others 
pass after Standard VII. straight to the Normal 
school. 

In outer circles a strong destructive criticism 
is directed against the anglicizing tendency of 
education in Burma, but amongst the missionaries 
actually engaged in it there is not the same 



Burma 73 

realization of a possible need for change as is 
found amongst certain sections of missionary- 
educators in other parts of India. The reason 
for this may partly lie in the fact that the Western 
education of girls — indeed education at all beyond 
the mere rudiments — is of later date in Burma 
than elsewhere, and that consequently its full 
effect cannot yet be traced. Moreover, among 
the Burmese there is not the same " nationalist " 
spirit as exists in India proper, and this directly 
influences the educational problem. It must be 
remembered, too, that there is not the same gulf 
between the woman's life and the man's as in 
other parts of India, and that the system used 
for boys may in many respects be excellent for 
girls. But whether we have here in its early 
stages a problem which is destined to become 
more acute, is a subtle question and one worthy of 
close inquiry. At any rate, no constructive theory 
has as yet been put forward by any mission school. 
The general public, however, criticize, and taking 
that criticism for what it is worth, there is a 
general indictment on the ground of the education 
given being mere "cram," and not really a train- 
ing of mind and character. A Burmese Deputy 
Commissioner writes : "If women have become 
more educated, many have also become more frivo- 
lous, spending their time in reading songs, zats,*^ 

'' Dramatic tales with pointed moral. The " Pyazats, ' ' 
the modern development thereof are popular burlesque 
plays, performed at festivals. Cf. Burma. Sir George 
Scott. 



74 Education of Women of India 

and useless trash, instead of doing more useful 
work." 8 A special accusation is also directed 
against the general atmosphere of the school, 
which is too reminiscent of English to be the 
natural one for a foreign country. 

Both these criticisms are apparently concerned 
more with the problem of the teacher than with 
that of the curriculum. The Government Code 
is elastic, the trouble is the lack of emphasis laid 
on Oriental subjects. A British or American 
missionary may often enter at once into school 
life in Burma without any opportunity of knowing 
the people or the language, and be thus unable 
to give the Burmese tone, which in theory she 
may or may not value. I observed the special 
case of a young American at the head of a 
large Anglo-Vernacular Middle school who was 
obliged to interview her new pupils through an 
interpreter, and had no means of supervising the 
instruction given in the vernacular throughout 
her school. The educational problem translates 
itself here into the mission problem of under- 
staffing. It may doubtless be argued that the 
denationalizing influence in the mission schools is 
that of a religion presented in its Western aspects 
but it is interesting to note that the same atmo- 
sphere is felt in the Empress Victoria Buddhist 
Girls' School,^ which is constantly under the 
personal influence of Mrs Hla Oung, a leading 
Buddhist. The definite statement, " We wish to 
be English in everything except our religion," 

8 Public Instruction Report, p. i8. ^ Cf. p. 66. 



Burma 75 

affords a striking contrast to the care with 
which some missionaries seek to preserve all 
that is good and right in national tradition 
and custom. 

Passing from the dominant influence to the 
staff, through which the Head-mistress must 
transmit her ideals, what opportunities of training 
have these teachers had ? As regards the Normal 
schools the whole work is practically in the hands 
of the missionaries. There are four Normal 
schools for girls all under mission management. 
These included in 1910 eighty-eight pupils, of 
whom sixty-nine were native Christians. There 
are also a few girls in the Government Normal 
schools for men, notably two Mohammedan girls 
in the Mandalay school. The criticism in the 
Government Report is that the literary work 
demanded of the female students is too severe, 
especially if they do not aim at teaching in any 
institution higher than a Primary school. Some 
alteration in the curriculum is suggested. More- 
over, many teachers cannot afford to defer the 
opportunity of an immediate salary, and do not 
pass through the Normal school. Most of those in 
charge of the mission schools, however, insist upon 
Normal training for their teachers. The type of 
teacher produced is not, according to general 
opinion, a very high one ; she is intellectually 
weary, and looks upon her career mainly from a 
pecuniary point of view. There are, of course, 
marked exceptions. Teachers' Associations do 
not exist, and it is questionable whether these 



76 Education of Women of India 

would be advisable owing to the heat and strain 
of the necessary hours of teaching. The material, 
therefore, with which the Headmistress has to 
shape her school is not of the best quality, and it 
is all the more necessary that she should have 
leisure from routine for personal contact with 
both pupils and staff. This is just what she does 
not get. A very large proportion of her time is 
often taken up by work on Government schedules, 
and in personally teaching the higher English 
classes. In mission schools, which frequently 
have non-Christian teachers on their staff, she 
may also have to teach the Scripture lessons 
throughout. So far, we look in vain for Burmese 
women who have passed up to the University 
to train as leaders. Of the twelve women Arts 
students in Rangoon, only one is Burmese. She 
is a Christian. Even the Anglo-Indian com- 
munity, from which many of the teachers are 
drawn, rests content with the qualification of 
First Arts (a two years' University course), and 
no graduates have, as yet, to the writer's know- 
ledge, taken Secondary training. The ideal for 
women's education in Burma is the production 
of some fully qualified Burmese Head-mistresses, 
who will be able to impress their individuality 
on the whole system, and thus make it contribute 
to the beauty of their national characteristics. 

It will thus be seen that the day of foreign and 
missionary educators in Burma has in one sense 
only begun ; they are needed for pioneer work 
amongst the untouched hill districts ; for the even 



Burma 77 

more difficult task of guiding the course of 
higher education into the right channels ; and 
for the work of training those who will prove 
in the future its best interpreters to their own 
people. 



IV 

EASTERN BENGAL AND ASSAM- 

" A woman's place in the National life will now best 
be filled by the realization of herself ; she must grow 
to her full stature, taking as her due her share of God's 
light and air, of the gifts of the Earth-Mother." 

C. SORABJI, 

TO pass from the sunny smiling country of 
the Burmese to Dacca, the capital of 
Eastern Bengal and Assam, ^ is to enter 
a scene of strange contrast, and one marked by 
monotone and inertia. The brilliant Eastern sun 
shines down, but its rays are caught by no golden 
roofs and domes ; sombre grey stone meets the 
eye, with here and there traces of the carving and 
colouring left by the alerter men of centuries 
ago ; there are no smiling happy groups of women 
busy with the day's work, their gay garments 
bright against the background of tropical green, 
but only here and there ghostly figures clad in 
burqas,^ or some scantily draped " sweeper " 

1 This was written before the Durbar Proclamation 
on the further re-adjustment of Bengal areas. Calcutta 
is now the capital of the Bengali-speaking districts. 

2 White veil with eye-holes, enveloping the whole 
person. 

78 



Eastern Bengal and Assam 79 

women, little heeding, and as little heeded. A 
strange town it is, with a strange mixture of 
civilizations, and yet possessing withal a certain 
charm of latent capability. Relics of a Hindu 
past are there, almost lost beneath the Moslem 
dominance of the thirteenth century, which 
brought with it some of the glory of architecture 
and the learning of Upper India, but seemed to 
take on the colourlessness of the land to which it 
came, winning chiefly the lower classes ; now the 
new Western influence has come, and has given 
to the Bengali, by means of education, a unity 
which repudiates its source, thus creating a young 
India awake and alert. The diverse characteristics 
of the capital are in a sense typical of the diversity 
of the whole province and of the problems of 
its administration and development. The new 
province created by the Partition in 1905 
includes the territories formerly administered by 
the Chief Commissioner of Assam, to which have 
been added certain districts lying on the Eastern 
side of the bay of Bengal, the river regions of 
the Padua and the Jumna, and the Chittagong 
division which borders on the Burmese hill 
district. It thus includes large city populations, 
such as Dacca with over 90,000 inhabitants, 
and great river districts such as Sylhet, and the 
PaduaMeghna Delta, with its intersecting channels, 
which in the rainy season multiply by the hun- 
dred till the country is a network of waterways, 
and in which every brown boy is as much at home 
as he is on land — a country of villages and of rich 



8o Education of Women of India 

abundant harvests, where the monsoon fails not, 
and famine is unknown. Then there are the hUl 
districts — the Khasi and Garo Hills, the native 
states of Manipur and Tippera, and the country 
bordering on Burma, where a strong and vigorous 
people, marked by a hardy independence, are only 
gradually being touched by modern civilization. 
While the educational problem is mainly a rural 
one — in 1901 only 2 % were enumerated in the 
sixty one towns — the urban minority, with 
its demand for higher education, cannot be 
ignored. 

Female education in Eastern Bengal has certain 
aspects which make it differ from that in other 
provinces, and render it a peculiarly interesting 
study. Whereas elsewhere we shall trace the 
development of the three different influences — the 
spontaneous Indian movement, missionary efforts, 
and the work of Government, the last, in varying 
degrees, a unifying and co-ordinating agency — here 
we have one well-organized Government Female 
Education Committee, on which all these interests 
are represented, and by which a unified policy is 
in process of being worked out. This Committee 
was appointed after the Partition in 1907, to 
work under the Director of Public Instruction, 
and consists of those officials directly concerned, 
of non-officials of various creeds, of representa- 
tives of several missionary agencies, and of a few 
Indian and British ladies selected mainly for 
their interest in such matters. It is in no sense 
a popular body, and it has no executive function ; 




c 






o 

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Eastern Bengal and Assam 8i 

but it has done some extremely useful work. Its 
policy has been to survey the field, taking into 
account the diverse and complicated nature of 
the task to be accomplished, to utilize so far as 
possible all existing agencies, and to plan a 
thorough and scientific scheme embracing all 
classes. The development of this scheme must 
be one of slow and patient labour. No great 
social scheme which is to have permanent results 
can be enforced in a revolutionary or sudden 
way, and least of all where prejudice has to be 
overcome, where public opinion must be influenced, 
and where possibly the passing of generations and 
the influence of heredity are needed for its fruition. 
In a sense the very backwardness of the province 
is its opportunity. The possibility before it of 
laying foundations on sound educational prin- 
ciples, of using the experience gained by other 
provinces in the adaptation of certain types of 
institutions to local conditions, of surveying 
the whole field without haste, and of making a 
systematic effort to raise all classes and all sections 
of the population, augurs well for the future stand- 
ing of the province, and may produce a better 
type of education than that which has developed 
more quickly and more sporadically elsewhere. 

A sketch of the present situation must naturally 
take as its centre the work of this Committee, the 
result of its survey of the classes affected, its 
utilization of existing agencies, its constructive 
work, and the practicable character of its aims. 

What, then, of the actual girls to be educated ? 



8 2 Education of Women of India 

The classes affected are many and diverse, educa- 
tion and rank often varying in inverse proportion ; 
the educational and the social problems are here 
again so closely interwoven that the holding of 
parda parties has a very definite relation to 
the statistics of school attendance. The Indian 
Christians, of whom there are over 66,000, mostly 
living in the Khasi and Jaintia Hills are naturally 
keenly eager for education, and contribute con- 
siderably to the supply of teachers. About the 
non-Christians it is impossible to generalize.^ 
From the young Begum * directly descended from 
one of the Moslem invaders to the child of some 
peasant woman, who grudges her from the work 
of the field to the seemingly profitless village 
school, is a far cry, and the gamut of possibilities 
lies between. Here is a high-born Moslem girl, 
whose male relatives hold University degrees and 
Government appointments, and who will allow a 
certain advance to their women- folk, but no more. 
For instance, an English teacher may be admitted 
for a few hours a day, or if the family be wealthy 
and of sufficient rank, an English governess may 
be secured to devote her whole time to the pupils. 
Here is another still so tied by conservatism that 
she may not see English ladies or learn of modern 
thought. Her male relatives may give her the 

^ Mohammedans, 18 millions. Hindus, ii| millions. 
Animists, ij millions. 1901 Census. 

* This title is used of a Mahommedan woman of a 
ruling family, or who can prove direct descent from 
the Prophet. 



Eastern Bengal and Assam 83 

smattering of Koranic lore which is necessary for 
religion. The Mohammedan women of the upper 
class can nearly all read Urdu, and are clever with 
their needles. Here is a girl of the Brahma 
Samaj, supposed to be free, and yet one might 
almost say shy of her freedom, with every oppor- 
tunity to take the higher education which would 
fit her for social influence, she yet ceases her 
studies when only some three standards beyond 
her Hindu sister. Another girl with the same 
up-bringing has sufficient strength and determina- 
tion to persevere through the whole course and 
finish with Normal training or University honours. 
There is a strong demand for education up to 
a certain stage also among the Brahmans, 
Kayasths,^ and Baidyas,^ a demand which is, 
however, limited to the few years before the 
parda is strictly drawn, an event which happens 
between the ages of eight and eleven. Then 
there are the lower class Mohammedans, who 
are anxious only for Koranic education, the 
Namasudras,^ whose intellect is at so low a level 
that a whole term may be spent in acquiring a 
single letter of the alphabet, and the hill tribes 
where parda is non existent, and where in certain 
cases the women are more literate than the men. 
The whole enumeration shows how very diverse 

^ A literary caste. 

^ A literary caste, about 25 per cent, of their women 
are literate. 

'■ Descendants probably of the original inhabitants of 
the district. 



84 Education of Women of India 

and complex are the classes for whom education 
must be planned. 

Passing to the agencies at work, there have 
been in the more advanced portions of the 
province, apart from Government and the 
municipalities, spontaneous efforts to educate 
girls. Some of the present village schools are of 
this indigenous type, and are kept possibly by an 
elderly Hindu pandit and his wife, where little 
girls are collected for a few hours daily — not 
stated hours — and drone over Bengali books of 
an archaic type, in an ill-ventilated room. The 
result of this education may be the ability to 
recite certain shlokas ^ and to check a marketing 
account, or merely the prestige in the marriage 
market of having been to school. Where it is 
possible to improve schools of this type or 
standard, they fall into the general scheme, but 
as a rule they are "passed by on the other side." 
The Mahakali Patshala,^ started in 1907 at 
Mymensingh, represents again spontaneous effort 
of a more advanced type, and is an attempt to 
give a modern and strictly religious education on 
Hindu lines. This institution is much more 
advanced than the parent Patshala, described 
on page 113. The Mohammedan community 
have been more backward in organizing 
schools ; a circular sent out by a Sub- 
Committee on behalf of the Government to 

^ Shloka, a particular type of Sanskrit metre, often 
used loosely to mean any verse of Sanskrit poetry. 
^ Patshala = school. 



Eastern Bengal and Assam 85 

various Mohammedan associations produced very 
few replies, including the following : " But it is 
not proper time for starting Mohammedan female 
education, as the people are not willing to have 
their girls educated." There is, however, a 
certain number of Muktabs or Koranic schools, 
where girls are taught what is necessary for 
religion, and in some cases a little secular know- 
ledge. 

The most important missionary agencies in the 
province are the Baptists from Australia, New 
Zealand, America, and England, and the Welsh 
Presbyterians, all of whom are carrying on good 
educational work. The Sisters of the Oxford Mission 
have also entered the field more recently. Taken 
as a whole the missionary contribution is, however, 
much smaller than in other provinces. The best 
vernacular school for girls in Dacca is that which 
has a hostel attached of the English Baptist 
Mission, and the training of teachers at Nowgong 
in the hill districts is proving specially useful to 
Government. This can be better considered later 
in relation to the hill districts as a whole. The 
mission schools are a welcome addition to the 
educational scheme, and it is satisfactory to note 
the cordial relations and co-operation between 
their organizers and the Government officials. 
As regards their extension, if new schools were 
contemplated in a town or district where a good 
accessible school already existed, grants would 
probably not be given, but as the field is practi- 
cally unlimited, the question is merely academic. 



86 Education of Women of India 

Thus the constructive policy of the Government 
Committee ^^ embraces these existing agencies and 
all schools entirely under public control, whether 
municipal or directly under Government. The 
Committee aims at the ideal of a Primary school in 
every village, in more populous centres the 
raising of a certain number of these to schools of 
a rather better type, the establishment of a 
Government school (Middle or Anglo-Vernacular) 
in the headquarters of every division, the warm 
encouragement of all private Middle schools, and 
the development of some definite system of 
parda instruction which could reach the higher 
and stricter classes. The system is completed by 
three existent High schools. Taking these 
different stages in order we must first consider 
the Primary schools. 

There were in 1909, 4501 Primary schools in the 
whole Province, an increase of about 800 on the 
preceding year. Assam and the Surma Valley 
are scantily provided. The establishment of a 
sound system of Primary schools is naturally the 
chief aim, but its attainment depends on the 
development of a thoroughly efficient staff of 
teachers. The word " primary " covers a multi- 
tude of sins, and is very varied in its applica- 
tion. Here, for instance, is a school of the aided 
type in a village of over 6000 inhabitants. The 
little girls are crushed together on ill-constructed 
benches in an ill-ventilated room, agonizing in 

'0 Information throughout is chiefly drawn from 
Proceedings of Female Edrtcaiion Committee. 



Eastern Bengal and Assam 87 

different degrees of shyness under the thriUing 
ordeal of a visitor. All of them are Hindus, for 
the Mohammedans do not go to school in this 
village. Apparently there is scarcely any system 
of classification except for the broad distinction 
of " little " and " less." All are under eleven 
years of age and, according to the village custom, 
have walked to school in charge of the school 
servant. The school is supposed to teach up to 
Standard III, but every girl who leaves able to 
read and write, and not much injured in health 
from sitting daily for five hours in a cramped 
position, may consider herself lucky. The 
attempts of itinerant Sub-Inspectors at teaching 
the venerable pandit how to teach, have fallen on 
unscathed shoulders, yet there is a certain pathos 
in the owl-like glance with which he fixes the two 
Sub-Inspectors, who answer all the visitor's 
questions without the least reference to him. 
For the pandit knows that his day is done — a new 
school is in process of erection, and an energetic 
Sub-Divisional Officer is on the outlook for a 
trained schoolmistress. With the passing of the 
pandit will go much of the quaintness of the 
Indian school, which sentimentally may be 
regretted, but which must yield place to the 
modern demand for efficiency. It is refreshing 
to turn to a school of the new order, an urban 
one. The day is wet, so only twenty-five out of 
forty pupils are present, Hindus chiefly, of the 
Kayasth caste. The three lowest classes are 
happily seated on matting with a tiny desk in 



88 Education of Women of India 

front ; the older ones are still swinging their feet 
on too high a bench — but what good is there 
in having Inspectresses if there is nothing to 
improve ? A tidy time-table on the wall shows 
the rotation of lessons. There are shells for 
arithmetic, maps and object-lesson sheets, there 
is space for drill or breathing exercises at the end 
of every hour, there are neat specimens of sewing 
(not perennial ones which have survived many an 
inspection) and above all, there is a happy smiling 
mistress, whose personality inspires new ideals 
and new thoughts. A bright little maiden of 
eleven in a blue and gold sari, who gaily translates 
an Urdu conversation into Bengali, has designs on 
a scholarship for the Eden High School, and 
perhaps some day she, too, may be an " Ustani " ^^ 
as wondrous wise as her mistress. This is the 
bright side of things, but it shows the possibilities 
which lie under dry statistics. The recent report 
of 1910 on Primary schools in the town of Dacca 
shows an increase of about 200 girls in one year. 
Of the sixteen schools, twelve are now provided 
with mistresses and the general progress is 
satisfactory, although there are still many 
difficulties to overcome, especially if the propor- 
tional increase in the number of pupils exceeds, 
as is probable, that of the trained teachers 
available, and proper space is lacking. The 
problem in Dacca is typical of the urban problem 
throughout. Primary education in the hill 
districts is of a different type. 
11 Teacher. 



Eastern Bengal and Assam 89 

The Middle Schools, partly English and partly 
only vernacular, are some twenty in number, 
varying in type from a long established school 
such as the Alexandra Girls' School at Mymen- 
singh, with ten teachers, and a Headmistress 
from the Isabella Thoburn College,!^ to one which 
has only six scholars beyond the Primary stage 
and one mistress, but which must be raised in 
standard and type for the sake of the district. 
The generosity of the native landowners is to be 
noted in connection with these schools ; in two 
cases a whole new building and site have been 
acquired in this way. 

All roads lead to Mecca, and all pursuit of 
higher education in Eastern Bengal tends to the 
Eden Girls' High School, Dacca, where, under the 
supervision of Miss Lena Sorabji, the portals of 
Calcutta University are successfully reached. 
This school is the Model High School for the 
province, the two others at Chittagong and 
Mymensingh are not as yet so efficiently staffed 
or equipped, though that at Chittagong holds its 
own at the Matriculation examination. There 
are some two hundred girls in the Eden High 
School, mostly Hindu, with a fair proportion of 
Brahma Samaj and Mohammedan girls, including 
also a few Christians. The curriculum is that of 
a first-class English High school in its relation to 
the Matriculation subjects. In the lower classes 
the scientific principles of education are in full 
vogue, story and group method, with an excellent 
1- C/. p. 137. 



90 Education of Women of India 

Kindergarten apparatus. The teachers are 
mostly Indian with three Anglo-Indians, and there 
is also a very efficient music mistress. Moral 
instruction is given, and there is throughout an 
excellent tone. It is possible to attend the school 
and keep strict par da, a young Begum has 
recently been assigned to it by the Court of Wards 
in order to complete her education. A very 
important feature of the school is the Training 
department, in which teachers are trained 
for the Bengali-speaking parts of the province. 
(Assamese teachers are trained at Nowgong and 
the Hill Districts in Shillong.) Training is given 
free on condition of teaching in a Government 
school for two years thereafter. There is both 
an English and a Vernacular course, and the effect 
of the latter can be seen in such schools as the 
Primary school sketched above. There are three 
students at present in the English department, 
and twenty-two in the Vernacular. Any girls 
passing the Matriculation examination from here 
are certain of Government scholarships, or 
" stipends " as they are called, to the University 
of Calcutta. The only drawback at present is 
the lack of space, but plans are already de- 
finitely formed, and a site secured for new 
buildings, which will ultimately include a College 
department. 

But when all is said, it is only an infinitesimal 
fraction of the female community which is touched 
by the Middle and High schools. The fourth 
sphere of the Committee's work, the organizing 










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x: 
b;j 



< 



Eastern Bengal and Assam 91 

of a definite system of parda instruction, is there- 
fore in some ways the most important. Many 
important and far-reaching influences are at work 
behind the veil, and it is here, too, that the influence 
of the Education Committee must be felt. A 
comparison of the numbers attending Primary 
schools (84,798) with those attending High and 
Middle schools (1846), shows how limited is the 
school period for the average girl. The parda 
instruction to a certain extent supplements the 
education of those children who are withdrawn 
for marriage at about ten years of age. On the 
other hand, as the number of girls of school age 
at school is only 3%, a certain amount of this 
work is amongst the absolutely illiterate older 
women, though the minimum age of ten prevents 
overlapping with the Primary schools. A further 
aim is to create a more friendly atmosphere in 
the zenanas towards the whole question of educa- 
tion. In some cases it is an immediately fruitful 
work, in others a sowing of seed for the future. 
There are now some 600 girls and women under 
instruction of this type in seven different towns, 
the classes in Dacca being most fully developed. 
Here there are four governesses at work, each 
with six centres to teach. Two of them are 
Mohammedans, one Brahma Samaj, and one 
Christian, the last under missionary super- 
intendence. The education given is of the 
simplest type, including, however, in some cases 
drawing, painting, history, and geography. 
Indeed when the circumstances are taken into 



92 Education of Women of India 

consideration it could hardly be otherwise ; the 
classes are held in the houses of progressive men, 
rich or poor, and consist as a rule solely of the 
women of the household and their immediate 
neighbours, the numbers varying from six to 
about twenty. The ages of the pupils vary from 
eight to fifty, all are at different stages, all are 
irregular in attendance, many are accompanied 
by babies, and the class generally ends in 
individual instruction. Yet progress is being 
made, and it is good to see the group of daintily 
dressed women awaiting the arrival of the teacher 
who forms their link with the outer world. A 
very great deal depends on her personality and 
skill in overcoming prejudice. One of the teachers 
is a Mohammedan lady of good position, the wife 
of a pleader ; she drives in strict parda to and 
from her work, and has naturally inspired other 
strict Mohammedans with confidence in the 
scheme. Recently an English governess has begun 
work in Dacca under the Committee, but in her 
case there is a binding fee of five rupees for every 
family who employs her. The system is one which 
is peculiarly adapted to Eastern Bengal with its 
strict parda customs, and though expensive to 
Government,i3 is in the meantime more than 
worth while in its indirect influence in breaking 
down prejudice and supplementing the whole 
system of instruction. 

13 50 rupees per month in addition to 25 rupees gari- 
allowance is given to each governess and the pupils do 
not contribute much. 



Eastern Bengal and Assam 93 

Education in the Hill Districts reveals a some- 
what different problem. There is no parda, 
co-education is frequent, and suits the customs of 
the people. A Lushai writer dealing with this 
says : " The men and women are all on the same 
footing, except in some cases, where the women 
are master." In the hill tracts of Assam, some 
2551 girls are studying in boys' schools and 701 
in separate girls' schools, practically all of the 
latter and a large proportion of the former are 
worked by the missions, which are doing excellent 
service to education. The schools are much 
appreciated, and the Government grant of 4022 
rupees to the mission schools is almost equalled 
by the contributions of the people themselves. 
Special arrangements are being made by Govern- 
ment with the American Baptist Mission at 
Nowgong for the training of Government teachers 
in the Mission Training School. In some parts 
education is absolutely at a standstill ; for 
example, in the Mikir hills, " female education 
is supposed to have perished fifteen years ago 
with the death of its only representative, a young 
girl of Nowgong ! " In Chittagong Hill District 
the opposition is that of a wild uncivilized people. 
A boarding school is the only possiblity, but that 
seems too terrible ! The parents are half-civilized, 
and will send a child for one month and withdraw 
her the next ; the children, moreover, have their 
own way. " If the parents say their girl shall go 
to school, and she says ' I will not,' she does not 
go." There are at present seven precious pupils 



94 Education of Women of India 

in the Mission Girls' school at Chandra Ghona. 
In Tippera there is much opposition. Twenty- 
five girls are, however, reported in three mission 
schools in the latter district. An interesting 
account of indigenous schools comes from a lady 
missionary working in one of the hill districts : 
" There are some small Primary independent village 
schools taught by Hindu men or women voluntarily. 
Some of these receive Government aid, and some 
do not. The parents of the scholars contribute 
a little towards the teacher's support, and supply 
the school-house. It is generally believed that 
the visits of a missionary to such schools lend 
prestige to them, and the children are encouraged 
to attend by the small rewards given by the 
missionary for attendance and Scripture know- 
ledge. Hence such scholars invariably wel- 
come regular visits." The main problems are 
those of co-education, the training of teachers, 
and the multiplicity of dialects. Steps are 
also being taken to develop weaving and local 
industries in many parts for the less advanced 
tribes. 

Such in brief outline is the Government policy 
for female education. How far is it a living 
reality ? "The moment imagination has gone 
out of your Asiatic policy, your Empire will 
divide and decay." i* How far is there imagina- 
tion in the educational policy ? How far is 
it magnetic, flexible, and inspiring ? A policy, 
of necessity, is reflected by the persons who 

" Indian Speeches. Lord Curzon. 



Eastern Bengal and Assam 95 

administer it, the inspectorate and teaching 
staffs, the organizing Committee, and the general 
social attitude of the community. The task of 
the Inspectorate is no easy one, and the word calls 
up visions of many successive nights spent in 
bullock carts, in trains, and on horseback to reach 
the inaccessible parts of an inaccessible province, 
a multitude of detail, and little time to relate it 
consciously to the underlying principles. To the 
casual onlooker taking into account the general 
social conditions of Indian life, it hardly seems 
work which a woman should do, and yet it is 
work which must be done by women. Indian 
girls can only be well taught by women, and this 
necessitates a female Inspectorate at least for 
the upper grades. From 1908 to 1911 there was 
only one Inspectress in the province, and in 1909 
two assistant Inspectresses were appointed ; an 
additional appointment has, however, recently 
been made for the Chittagong and Surma Valley 
Districts. A further increase would greatly 
facilitate the development of the work, and would 
probably repay in efficiency the extra expense. 
There is a great deal written and said about the 
denationalizing influence of education, and the 
need for bringing our system into touch with 
Indian thought and Indian life. More especially 
in the present case, when a new policy is being 
shaped, there is need for flexibility in the system 
and an Inspectorate closely in touch with the 
inner side of Indian home-life. What should an 
Indian girl know ? What will fit her best to hold 



96 Education of Women of India 

aright her true place ; what will render her happier 
and more intelligent, retaining her Sita-like 
devotion and her gentle bearing ? The planning 
of a curriculum and teacher's manual in relation 
to this aim is no easy task, and it remains to be 
seen whether the new manuals, the work of the 
first Inspectress, will have fulfilled these demands. 
Some women are born teachers, and some have 
teaching thrust upon them. In India the old 
ideal of teaching is that of a vocation ; the bread 
of life is given freely by those who have to those 
who have not. Modern conditions have of neces- 
sity modified this ideal to a certain extent, but 
its spirit is still needed. The great scarcity of 
women teachers, and consequent certainty of 
employment, tends to lower the standard of char- 
acter and efficiency. The teacher who will only 
do her own " kam," 1^ and not lend a helping hand 
to others, who is ever listening for the stroke of the 
clock, who is quick to take offence and ill to con- 
ciliate, is known in this province as elsewhere. 
The lack of a common religious basis as a ground 
of appeal is undoubtedly felt ; the establishment 
of Teacher's Associations in the urban centres, 
and, where possible, of the Young Women's 
Christian Association Teachers Union, might be 
useful. It is to be regretted that very few of the 
teachers are not drawn from the families of upper 
class ; the work done by one of the Mohammedan 
governesses in Dacca is an evidence of what can 
be accomplished in this way even without scientific 

1^ Work. " It is not my work " is a common excuse. 



Eastern Bengal and Assam 97 

training. There are, however, some splendid 
Indian women teachers, contact with whom is an 
inspiration, and it is to be hoped that the influence 
of the training classes in the Eden High School 
at Nowgong and at Shillong may gradually raise 
the general tone. Here, as in Burma, is the great 
means of counteracting anglicizing influences ; 
education is the communication of personality, 
and the ideal Indian school of the future must 
have Indian teachers. The instilling of the 
principles of educational science and of true 
culture in Indian teachers, until these are no 
longer slavishly reproduced but lived and worked 
out in relation to Indian environment, is the task 
of the Western educator. 

The success of any policy depends upon how 
closely it is in touch with the spirit of the com- 
munity, and the wisdom of connecting a local 
committee with the management of every Middle 
and High school is unquestioned ; these Com- 
mittees are supposed to consist of equal numbers 
of men and women, and indeed the Government 
grant is often given only on condition of there 
being an efficient working Committee. There 
are also ladies' committees in connection with the 
zenana classes in the urban centres. It has, 
however, been exceedingly difficult to secure the 
necessary ladies for this work, for the supply of 
educated Indian ladies is very limited, and English 
women, because of the shortness of their stay in 
any one district, are unwilling to undertake it. 
Some of the oflicials' wives have, however, given 



98 Education of Women of India 

splendid service in this way, and even if it is only 
a passing service it is more than worth while. 
The work of these committees in the breaking 
down of social prejudice and ensuring the con- 
fidence of the community is untold. There is, 
as has been already said, a definite connection 
between parda parties and school attendance. 
The parda party as a social institution in other 
provinces has come to stay. It is perhaps a pity 
that here it has had a certain shadow cast upon it 
of officialdom and organization. The spontaneous 
and individual effort is quickly felt and appreci- 
ated by Indian ladies. It must come also from a 
genuine and mutual desire for intercourse and not 
from any sous-entendu motive of pity or " bridge 
the gulf " idea. Indian ladies have their own 
contribution to make to the unifying of ideals 
not only between Indian and English, but between 
Indian and Indian. " The less said about parda 
parties and the more held," is probably a wise 
dictum. The work on some of the educational 
sub-committees will, however, often give an 
English lady the direct contact with Indian life 
which is so much needed. 

The outlook for women's education throughout 
the province is in many respects a hopeful one ; 
enthusiasts are working at it, there is a steadily 
increasing flow of girls coming to the schools ; a 
teaching staff is gradually being built up, suit- 
able text-books and manuals are being produced. 
The generosity of a Government, hampered by 
finance in every way, to this scheme, is a stamp 



Eastern Bengal and Assam 99 

of warm approval. No great social undertaking, 
however, is fulfilled in haste, and least of all 
where sympathy and the silent influence of 
individual friendship are needed to pave the 
way for it. 



V 

BENGAL 

" My Motherland, I sing 
Her splendid streams, her glorious trees, 
The zephyr from the far-off Vindyan heights. 
Her fields of waving corn, 

The rapturous radiance of her moonlit nights. 
The trees in flower that flame afar. 
The smiling days that sweetly vocal are. 
The happy, blessed Motherland." 

Translation by W. H. Lee, I.C.S. 

ONE of the subtlest problems of sociology 
is to trace the relation of cause and 
effect in new conditions of life affecting 
a community. Here in Bengal is a certain group 
of people calling themselves " a new nation " ; 
here is a new thought-centre by turns indefinite, 
immature, bombastic, tentative, yet possessing a 
certain unity and aspiring after certain definite 
ideals, and together with it, in part as cause, in 
part as effect, is the steady educational advance 
of certain sections of the community. There is 
little geographical unity, for the term " Bengal " 
has been of varying content, comprising in the 
early days all the East India Company's pos- 
sessions in Northern India ; after 1836 a more 

100 



Bengal loi 

definite and limited area, and finally ^ in 1905 re- 
duced, broadly speaking, to Bihar, Chota Nagpore, 
Orissa and the section of Bengal proper which lies 
west of the Ganges and the Hooghly. Ethnically, 
a mixture of Dravidian, Mongolian and Aryan 
elements, even Hnguistic unity, is lacking, Bengali, 
Hindi, Bihari and Oriya, with their corresponding 
dialects being the languages mainly in use. Yet, 
in spite of all, the Bengali claim of unity is there 
in virtue of their education, and in virtue of the 
" high proportion of Hteracy that exists in Bengal 
compared with most parts of India." Linguistic- 
ally again, Bengali, though only the native tongue 
of some 52 % 2 of the population, has become a 
modern literary language, and as such is a strong 
factor for unity and progress. It is true that 
those conscious of this unity who express them- 
selves variously in congresses, in journalism, in 
sedition, or in loyal Government service are 
doubtless a minority, but they are an increasing 
element, and one which may assert itself more in 
the future. The political side of this movement 
is beyond the scope of this book, its existence 
cannot, however, be ignored as it is one of the 
causes of the tide which is slowly setting in 
favour of the education of women. 

AU the same obstacles and difficulties which 
we have studied in Eastern Bengal, and some 
even more hard to surmount, are to be found 
here. Seventy-eight per cent, of the popula- 

1 Cf. Note Chap. IV, p. 78. 

2 Imperial Gazetteer of India — Volume Bengal. 



I02 Education of Women of India 

tion are Hindus and the consequent custom 
of marriage below the age of ten years cuts 
short the possible period of school attendance 
for girls. One woman in every five is a 
widow, and yet custom and prejudice prevent 
this numerous class from entering the teaching 
profession, as is the case with many spinsters 
at home. Ninety-four per cent, of the popula- 
tion live in scattered villages, and this increases 
the financial difficulty of providing sufficient 
accessible schools for girls whose parents are 
unwilling and often unable to pay anything. A 
strong prejudice against the whole idea of the 
education of girls still exists, and though syste- 
matic efforts are made to overcome this, they 
often lead to no result, as is testified in the report 
of a Mohammedan gentleman of good position 
engaged by Government to popularize education 
among his co-religionists in Bihar. It often seems 
as if all effort to overcome this prejudice were 
unavailing. Yet in the face of all this there is a 
strong body of Indian opinion which emphasizes 
in speech and in the press the need and advisa- 
bility of female education. The Brahma-Samaj, 
one of the reform Indian sects much tinged by 
Christian thought, gives every opportunity of 
education to its women, and has thus an influence 
out of all proportion to its numbers ^ in the 
province. By the extremely orthodox Hindu it 
is looked upon with the same suspicion as Christi- 
anity, and yet its tenets of liberty and equality 
* Only 31 71 in the 1901 Census. 



Bengal 103 

for womanhood have a direct bearing on the 
general parda conditions, especially in the cities, 
so that, while the overwhelming proportion of 
girls over twelve years of age in school is Christian 
or Brahma- Samaj, the influence of a new move- 
ment is beginning to make itself felt. A a 
occasional Moslem girl, to whom a Government 
" stipend " has been awarded for her encourage- 
ment, is to be seen in the higher classes, or a young 
Hindu widow, who has been allowed to return 
to school to fit herself for a useful life. 

Historically this movement in the Indian com- 
munity is the result of the work of Christian 
missions, which have been consistently the leaders 
both in producing a high educational standard 
amongst the Christian women and in affording 
facilities to any others who would come to their 
schools. The Maharani of Baroda gives a fitting 
tribute in her recent book * to Miss Cook and 
Lady Amherst as the two pioneers of women's 
education in all India. Some share of this 
should also be given to Mrs Marshman, under 
whose instigation a society for the Education of 
Native Females was founded in Calcutta in 1819. 
In the same year the first modern girls' school 
in all India was opened under its auspices. By 
1821 thirty-two pupils were in attendance. 
Though the Baptists were the first to actually 
start instruction, a parallel movement had been 
made by a united committee of British and 

* Position of Women in Indian Life. Her Highness the 
Maharani of Baroda. Cf. also Chap. II, p. 36. 



1 04 Education of Women of India 

Hindu men. This Calcutta. School Society was 
founded in 1818 to advance the education of both 
boys and girls, and on its invitation Miss Cook 
left England to open a school for Hindu girls in 
Calcutta. The courage of the Hindu members of 
the committee, however, failed them when it 
came to the actual starting of the school. 
" Although they had spoken well while yet the 
matter was at a distance and in the region of 
theory, they recoiled from the obloquy of so rude 
an assault on time-honoured custom. The Babus 
had been brought up to the talking-point, but not 
to the acting-point." ^ India thus lost the honour 
of a direct share in the first Western education of 
her women. Miss Cook was fortunately able to 
transfer her services to the Church Missionary 
Society, and opened her first school in 1822. The 
dramatic circumstances of this are worth quoting 
in full : 5— 

" Whilst engaged in studying the Bengali 
language, and scarcely daring to hope that an 
immediate opening for entering upon the work, 
to which she had devoted herself, would be found, 
Miss Cook paid a visit to one of the native schools 
for boys, in order to observe their pronunciation ; 
and this circumstance, trifling as it may appear, 
led to the opening of her first school in Thun- 
thuniya. Unaccustomed to see a European lady 
in that part of the native town, a crowd collected 
round the door of the school. Amongst them was 
an interesting looking girl, whom the school 
* Calcutta Review, 1855. 



Bengal 105 

pandit drove away. Miss Cook desired the child 
to be called, and by an interpreter asked her if 
she wished to learn to read. She was told in 
reply that this child had for three months past 
been daily begging to learn to read with the boys, 
and that if Miss Cook (who had made known her 
purpose of devoting herself to the instruction of 
native girls) would attend next day, twenty girls 
should be collected. Accompanied by a female 
friend conversant with the language, she repeated 
her visit on the morrow and found fifteen girls, 
several of whom had their mothers with them. 
Their natural inquisitiveness prompted them to 
inquire what could be Miss Cook's motive for 
coming amongst them. They were told that she 
had heard in England that the women of their 
country were kept in total ignorance, that they 
were not taught to read or write, that the men 
only were allowed to attain any degree of know- 
ledge, and it was also generally understood that 
the chief obstacle to their improvement was that 
no females would undertake to teach them ; she 
had therefore felt compassion for them, and had 
left her country, her parents, and friends to help 
them. The mothers with one voice cried out, 
smiting themselves with their right hands, ' Oh 
what a pearl of a woman is this ! ' It was added, 
' she has given up every earthly expectation, to 
come here, and seeks not the riches of the world, 
but desires only to promote our best interests.' 
' Our children are yours, we give them to you.' 
' What will be the use of learning to our girls, and 



io6 Education of Women of India 

what good will it do to them ? ' They were told : — 
' It will make them more useful in their families, 
and increase their knowledge, and it was hoped 
that it would also tend to give them respect and 
produce harmony in their families.' — ' True/ said 
one of them, ' our husbands now look upon us as 
little better than brutes.' Another asked, ' What 
benefit will you derive from this work ? ' She 
was told that the only return wished for was to 
promote their best interest and happiness. Then 
said the woman, ' I suppose this is a holy work, 
and well pleasing to God.' As they were not able 
to understand much, it was only said in return 
that God was always well pleased that His servants 
should do good to their fellow creatures. The 
women then spoke to each other in terms of the 
highest approbation of what had passed." 

In the course of 1822 eight schools were 
established, attended more or less regularly by 
214 girls. The Marchioness of Hastings also 
created a deep impression by personally visiting 
many of the back alleys of the city, and during 
the last two years of her stay in India her 
enthusiasm did much to allay prejudice. In 
1824 the Ladies' Society for Female Native 
Education was formed through the efforts of 
Miss Cook (now Mrs Wilson), and a handsome 
central school was erected, to which Indian 
gentlemen, notably Raja Buddinath Roy, con- 
tributed largely. Lady Amherst was the first 
President of the new society. Dr Duff, com- 
menting on the situation some twenty years later, 



Bengal 107 

marks the wisdom of the middle course between 
the " impossible " and the " all things possible " 
party, the com^age of those who were willing to 
begin with " here and there a few." While he 
held that the education of the men of India must 
precede the education of the women, on any 
great scale, he looked forward to the time when 
" there would be a wide and spontaneous demand 
for female education by thousands and ten 
thousands. Then indeed would dawn upon 
India the golden age of education." ^ 

It is a far cry from those days to the Calcutta 
of to-day with its seven High schools, five of which 
have college departments, its Training College, 
its Female Inspectorate, and a Government eager 
to do anything to promote what it regards as a 
main social factor in the development of the 
country. The " rising tide " may be best studied 
in comparative percentages. '' As in Eastern 
Bengal, three forces are working here for the 

*> Address on Female Education in India, 1839, delivered 
by Dr Duff at the First Annual Meeting of the Scottish 
Ladies' Association. 

"^ Percentage of girls of school age at school. 

1881 . . . 0.87 

1891 . . . 1. 61 

1901 . . . 1.8 

1910 . . .4-3 

The total number of girls under instruction is now 
171.569- 

Imperial Gazetteer. Bengal Public Instruction Report, 
1910. 



io8 Education of Women of India 



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Bengal 109 

education of women, the Government, spon- 
taneous Indian effort, and the missionary societies, 
and a brief analysis of these with their varying 
types and functions may serve to throw light on 
the general situation with its problems and 
possibilities. 

The Government system is a somewhat 
different one from that employed in the newer 
province of Eastern Bengal and Assam, and 
may be taken as the normal one in the 
various provinces of India. The work is 
directly under the Director of Public Instruction, 
and forms a separate section of the ordinary 
Educational Department. There are two In- 
spectresses, who are members of the Indian 
Educational Service, but a large proportion 
of the inspection in the country districts is 
of necessity done by the ordinary Inspectors. 
Eastern Bengal has here the advantage of 
newer and more plastic organization. The 
Government policy is rather to aid voluntary 
schools than to launch out on schemes of its own ; 
its influence is mostly felt as a unifying agency by 
means of Code, standard of examination and 
inspection, and as presenting occasionally model 
types to which the voluntary schools may or may 
not think it wise to conform. Thus less than 
one in twenty-eight of all girls' institutions are 
entirely under public management, as may be 
seen in the accompanying table. A slight 
divergence from this policy may, however, be noted 
in the increase of Primary schools directly under 



1 1 o Education of Women of India 

Government control from one in 1907 to eighty- 
six in 1910.8 

The Bethune Girls' College and High School, 
Calcutta, founded in 1849, may be taken as a type 
of a model Government institution.^ Situated 
near Hadua Talau in the heart of the native city, 
like all city schools it suffers from lack of space. 
There is a fine pillared verandah through which 
one enters into an open court. Into this court 
open all the class-rooms. A characteristic feature 
is a very fine and spacious library well stocked 
with the classics of East and West. At the time 
of my visit several girls were sitting at work in it. 
A marked difference between Indian girls' High 
schools and those at home is that many of the 
former in the parda districts aim at having a 
College Department, which is affiliated to the 
University and in which girls are prepared up to 
the B.A. stage. The merits of this system will 
be discussed elsewhere.!^ In the Bethune College 
Department there are about thirty-five students, 
and in the school proper some one hundred and 
fifty, ranging in age from tiny girls of five or six 
to the Matriculation candidates of sixteen years 
and upwards. The lower classes are extremely 
crowded, and there is the falling off in the upper 
school which is so characteristic of India. This 
presents one of the most difficult problems in the 
education of Indian women. The aim being to 
fit the pupils for life, and to train them to think, 

8 Imperial Gazetteer. ^ Cf. Chap. II, p. 36. 

10 Cf. Chap. IX. 



Bengal 1 1 1 

how can it possibly be accomplished in the three 
short years which in the majority of cases is all 
the time available ? In the High school proper 
the assumption is that the girls will stay on, and 
the Bethune curriculum is shaped accordingly. 
There is a good Kindergarten, and all the modern 
plant to make an efficient school ; the great 
drawback, as usual, is the lack of trained teachers, 
only one of the whole staff having full qualifica- 
tions. Indian music is well taught as an extra 
subject, and it was a pretty sight to see some 
half-dozen girls accompanying the harmonium 
with violin, escar, and zitta. The school owes its 
success to two factors, first the personality of its 
former Head-mistress, Miss Bose, the first woman 
graduate of the University of Calcutta, and 
secondly to the eagerness with which the Brahma 
Samaj welcomed this move on the part of the 
Government. The girls in the higher classes are 
practically all from the Brahma Samaj, so much 
so that perhaps this influence is almost too 
predominant. A little Moslem girl who had 
received a special Government " stipend " on 
account of her religion, had recently turned 
Brahmo, but the Head-mistress assured us that 
the change was due entirely to home influences. 
There is a good hostel in the school compound, 
for which there are always more applications than 
available vacancies, and arrangements are being 
made for the more complete separation of the 
school from the College department. 
The function of the Inspectress is important, 



112 Education of Women of India 

and it is to be regretted that the word has come 
to suggest destructive rather than constructive 
criticism. " Training " is a more accurate 
description of the work, and in a country where 
a large proportion of the teachers are untrained, 
it well repays the money spent thereon. A visit 
often means three days spent in a village helping 
the teacher to a more scientific system. Sugges- 
tions as to improvements in the Code ought to 
come from the Inspectress, and she has every 
opportunity for studying the conditions of the 
people and the suitability of the type of educa- 
tion offered. To consider the relative value of 
European and Indian Inspectresses is at the 
present moment of purely theoretical interest. 
However great the advantage of the Indian in 
intimate knowledge of the environment and of the 
mental characteristics of the people, it is difficult 
as yet to procure any with the necessary scientific 
qualifications and gift of organization. The 
difficulties of travel are also accentuated for the 
Indian woman. The contribution of Indian 
thought should be in the meantime rather in the 
building up of individual schools, with ultimate 
constructive influence on the system as a 
whole. 

The indigenous and spontaneous effort of the 
Indian community towards the education of their 
women is of two types, that of the Brahma Samaj 
and reform societies, and that of the orthodox 
sections. The former is very much in line with 
the general system : the Code is used, and where 



Bengal 113 

alternative subjects are possible there is more 
emphasis laid on Sanskrit than in mission schools, 
but as a whole it is not strikingly " National." 
The Brahma Girls' High School in Calcutta 
receives a monthly grant of five hundred Rupees 
and is a first class institution. Their Middle 
schools are mostly English in contrast to the 
vernacular mission schools. There are also a 
few Hindu Primary schools, which follow the 
Government Code. It is to the orthodox com- 
munities that we must turn to find the distinct- 
ively Indian note, the retention of which in any 
really educative scheme presents so baffiing a 
problem. Here in the " Mahakali Pathshala " is 
a genuine Indian attempt at self-expression in 
educational ideals. This school was founded in 
1393, in Calcutta, by " Her Holiness Mataji 
Maharani Tapaswini," one of those strange women 
saints who flit across the pages of Indian history, 
freed by their mystical insight and rare wisdom 
from the shackles of ordinary Indian womanhood. 
Hither the dainty little Hindu maiden of the upper 
castes is brought in a closed gari with her hands 
full of marigolds and other blossoms, to learn that 
school is but a larger home where the mysteries 
and ritual of worship will become clear to her, 
where she too will lisp the monotonous chant to 
the glory of the gods, and sink her baby soul in 
meditation. True, there is a printed curriculum 
on the wall, which says that Sanskrit, Bengali, 
Moral Text Books and Arithmetic are to be studied 
in six classes, but what matter ! The effort which 



1 14 Education of Women of India 

these subjects entail is ever and anon relieved by 
worship, and by the cooking which is part of 
worship. Then there is the picture of Saraswati 
Devi/i on whom " as the Wonder of all Wisdom 
one meditateth in the third watch of the night," 
and three hundred babies ranging from three to 
eight years of age will daily sway their little bodies 
before her in the morning puja}'^ What musical 
drill is in the Kindergarten so is puja to the 
Patshala pupils. There is a special prize for the 
best performer of piija — a sari and a silver pin for 
every little Kumari ^^ who has honoured the school 
with her presence. The teachers are mostly 
elderly pandits, to whom the visit of the Inspectress 
indicates the desire of Government not to improve 
them, but to copy their most excellent methods 
in the Government schools ! Regarded from a 
Western point of view the education is nil ; the 
children can hardly read and write their own 
language, geography and arithmetic are practically 
absent, and there is no attempt to develop the 
mental faculties ; from the point of view of the 
orthodox Hindu, however, it is probably ideal ; 
the girls have " the ancient and sacred lore of 
their country infused into them and their lives 
are modelled after the ideal Hindu female char- 
acters of old." Herein lies the real value to the 
student of education : there is no gulf between 

11 The Goddess of Learning. On her festival, students 
will pile their books and inkpots before the shrines in 
their colleges for special blessing. 

1* Worship. 1* Lady, a title of respect. 



Bengal 115 

school and home, and the child's own environment 
and its hereditary instincts are utilized as a basis, 
but the trouble is that no superstructure is built 
thereon. Elsewhere we have superstructure but 
no basis. The school has no grant, no fees 
are paid, and the support is entirely obtained 
from subscriptions from the Hindu community. 
Extensively the influence of these schools is not 
great. There are nominally twenty- three branch 
schools in Bengal and Eastern Bengal, but a 
branch notified in the report is not always found 
to be in existence. That there is life in the move- 
ment is seen by the fact that the present Head, 
the Srimati Mataji, undertook a tour in the 
Mofussil and districts to organize branches. " She 
was everywhere well received, and there was 
evident sense of relief and sympathy of the 
public in the cause of female education under 
the Mahakali system." 1* To behold orthodox 
Hinduism sending a woman on tour in the 
interests of education is indeed to realise the 
Renaissance of the East ! But " relief " from 
what ? Is it from the non-religious character of 
the Government system ? 

The third and most potent factor in the educa- 
tional situation is the missionary one. As this 
was the first in the field one would expect their 
work to be more highly developed, and it must 
also be remembered that the Brahma Samaj is an 
indirect fruit of the leavening of Christian educa- 
tion. The doctrine of equal opportunity for man 
^^ Report of the Mahakali Patshala. 



1 1 6 Education of Women of India 

and woman is seen at work in the comparative 
religious statistics of girls at school. 

Primary . 5,360 Indian Christians to 126,897 Non- 
Christians. 

Middle . 1,382 Indian Christians to 1,430 Non- 
Christians. 

High . 448 Indian Christians to 667 Non- 

Christians. 

As the returns of the Bengal census i^ show 
only 319,384 Christians in a total population 
of 52,668,269, these figures referring to their 
daughters' education are striking. The aim of 
Christian education is twofold, the building up of 
the Christian community so that ultimately the 
Indian Church may be a strong social factor, and 
the education of non-Christians with a view to 
influencing them either directly or indirectly in 
favour of Christianity. These two aims are com- 
bined in most mission work except in the case of 
most of the girls' Boarding schools where a non- 
Christian girl is naturally the exception. Of the 
eleven High schools for Indian girls in the 
Province, six are imder mission management and 
two varying types may be noticed. 

The Diocesan High school — a Government-aided 
institution for girls under the management of the 
Clewer Sisters, has the reputation of being the best 
girls' school in Calcutta. The reason for this is easy 
to discover in the personality of its Principal, 
Sister Mary Victoria, whose aristocratic idealism (if 
the words may be combined) determines the tone of 

i» 191 1 Census. Statistical Abstract of British India. 



Bengal 117 

the whole school. In India the personal element 
counts for everything, and without it, the best of 
institutions and Government plans are unavailing. 
Sister Mary Victoria and her English staff are 
constantly with the girls and when the school was 
first started they took their meals with the 
boarders until a tradition of manners was estab- 
lished. The school is well staffed with trained 
teachers both English and Indian, the former 
predominating. An English lady also who is 
interested in the school comes regularly to teach 
brushwork. There is an excellent College De- 
partment. The Government curriculum is 
followed, and in addition systematic religious 
instruction is given to all pupils. The ideal of 
this school is not, however, success in examina- 
tions only and their shadow does not lie heavily. 
As a small pupil remarked to the writer : " There 
are lots of girls in our school who don't love 
examinations, but who do love school." The 
pupils are drawn from various ranks and creeds ; 
the boarders are mostly Christian, and the 
majority of the day scholars Hindu and Brahma. 
The leading Indian families in Calcutta send their 
girls here, and to the Loretto Convent ,1^ rather 
than to the Bethune School because of the personal 
contact with English ladies. The daily religious 
lesson is not felt as a deterrent in any way. It is 
curious to watch these girls drive up to the school 
in handsome carriages and to realize that they 

1" A school under the English Code, where only 15 
per cent, of the pupils may be of Indian parentage. 



1 1 8 Education of Women of India 

are only paying two shillings and eight pence a 
month for a really first class education. Many 
of the richer parents give donations as well, but 
the fee is kept low for the sake of the poorer. 
These fees and the Government grant practically 
cover the working expenses of the school apart 
from the support of the English staff. There are 
no separate schools for the wealthier classes 
worked on a system of full payment, partly 
because poverty is not so much a cause of separa- 
tion in India as in Britain and partly because 
there is not a sufficient number of girls ready for 
higher education who could and would pay fees 
that would cover expenses. Taken as a whole 
the fees in mission schools are higher than in 
Government institutions. 

Of a somewhat different and more usual type 
is the United Free Church High school, it exists 
almost entirely for the girls of this and other mis- 
sions who enter it as boarders from the country ; 
the school is thus predominantly Christian and has 
little contact with Indian life. Of 122 scholars 
about 90 are boarders, and accommodation is being 
built for more. The day scholars are mostly in 
the lower classes. The education given is ex- 
ceedingly thorough, and if the whole curriculum 
ending with a teachers' diploma is taken it ensures a 
girl a good post either in Government or mission 
service. There is no College Department, but a 
special feature since 1889 is the excellent Normal 
course from which most satisfactory results have 
been obtained. Miss Whyte may be rightly 



Bengal 119 

considered the pioneer of efficient training for 
teachers in Bengal. The Government curriculum 
is followed, and in addition the customary 
Bibhcal instruction is given. The school suffers 
from two drawbacks customary to all of its type, 
the lack of space and the " Westernization " of 
the pupils. Situated in one of the most crowded 
parts of the city, the buildings resemble a huge 
bee-hive packed with class rooms and dormitories 
and redeemed only by the glorious flat roof so 
characteristic of life in Calcutta. Below is a 
pathetically small playground where the boarders 
walk or read or play, in so far as the latter is 
natural to Indian girls. A splendid effort has 
been made by the staff to bring the girls into 
contact with nature and the historic monuments 
of India in order to counteract the cramping 
influence of the surroundings. One year a large 
party of teachers and former and present pupils 
visited Agra and Delhi, the wonder and glory of 
which opened a new field of thought and imagina- 
tion to the Bengali girls. Another year the whole 
school was transferred for a short time to Deoghur. 
The material obtained on these expeditions served 
as a basis for nature study throughout the term. 
The students and elder girls are also taken once 
a year for a short mission tour, which serves not 
only to enlarge their horizon, but also emphasizes 
the primary purpose of the school. In spite, 
however, of the energy and originality of the staff 
in organizing these expeditions, the atmosphere 
of the school remains very much that of an 



1 20 Education of Women of India 

ordinary secondary school in Scotland and has no 
distinctively Indian note. " Atmosphere " and 
curriculum are mutually dependent and their 
relationship is a problem that does not affect 
mission schools only. As a whole the mission 
High schools are doing a splendid work and their 
growing influence in the community is to be noted 
in the fact that occasionally Brahma-Samaj and even 
Hindu girls are found amongst their boarders. 

The Middle schools, teaching up to Standard 
v., have adopted the sound policy of excluding 
English, the object being to give a sound 
vernacular training to such children as will 
never have the chance of getting High school 
education. "It is these schools which supply 
the bulk of pupils to our training-schools for mis- 
tresses, and as such their importance in our 
system of female education • in this country is 
very great." 1^ The strong point of the mission 
schools, both Middle and Primary, is that they 
are under the direct and constant supervision of 
European workers. In one mission visited, all 
the Indian teachers were Christians and had had 
Normal training, and the schools were constantly 
visited by a lady holding the highest educational 
certificates. This is not the case ever5rwhere, but 
it is the ideal aimed at. A mission Primary school 
is a pleasant place full of promise and of future 
possibilities. Shadow and sunshine are mingled, 
but on the whole the sunshine predominates. 
Take for example one in the vicinity of Calcutta 
i*" Bengal Public Instruction Report, 1910. 






o 
o 

<J 

'Jl 

c 
o 



3 




^ 


rrt 


u 




<u 


3 


i-i 


rrt 


l^ 


(J 


■n 




1) 


3 


•^H 


Tl 


ui 


r 


o 


£ 



o 

a, 
IS 



o 

o 

CO 

:-< 
3 
O 



Bengal 121 

— an old one-storied dwelling -house off a village 
lane, which skill has converted into a passable 
four-roomed school, with a sandy patch of ground 
used for drill and occasional geography lessons. 
There are about 120 children from five to eight 
years of age, the infant department is evidently 
looked upon as a sort of creche by the village, 
for there are eighty babies sitting in solemn rows 
on the matting, but as soon as a girl becomes 
useful or marriageable she is withdrawn. Pre- 
siding over this happy family are three white- 
saried Christian girls, only one of whom has been 
trained as a teacher. The girl with the eighty 
pupils has only been as far as Standard III. 
herself ; she is however making a loyal effort ; 
the babies pass their wooden boards with very 
tidy hieroglyphics for inspection, but the impos- 
siblity of it all makes one wonder if a Government 
grant is wisely given. The Head-mistress lends 
a kindly eye, but her attention is centred on 
Standard III. with its five select girls ; this is 
the last year of Christian influences and these 
girls are being taught something not in the 
Government Code. They are bright and intel- 
ligent and the short Scripture lesson is enlivened 
by plenty of question and answer. Once a 
fortnight or once a week the school will be visited 
by an English lady, who will plan, supervise and 
if needful, give a model lesson. She has eight 
schools of this type under her personal super- 
intendence, and her visits are the pivot on which 
they turn. A good Government grant is given ; 



122 Education of Women of India 

the Code for vernacular Primary schools is 
followed, and as there is no competition the work 
is warmly welcomed by the Hindu community. 
The mission Primary schools hold their own in 
the educational system ; of thirty-eight money 
prizes given by Government to Calcutta girls' 
Primary schools, all but three were won by mission 
pupils. The special characteristics of the mis- 
sionary contribution to the educational problem, 
as a whole, are the presence of fully qualified 
European workers, who enter the educational 
sphere at salaries which no Government servant 
would accept, and the development of Normal 
work on scientific principles. 

This review of the three agencies at work leads 
to the general consideration of some of the main 
problems which underlie the types and organiza- 
tion described, and which affect the educational 
outlook ; the supply of teachers, the character 
of Secondary education, the development of 
Primary education and the co-ordination of the 
whole. The most crucial is undoubtedly that 
concerning the teacher. 

The school career of the Bengali girl is limited 
at present in the large majority of cases to only 
four or five years, and there is thus no time for the 
teacher to waste. If education is to commend 
itself at all to the real India (as distinct from 
" Babudom ") it must be of the very best type. 
The Government realize this and are putting forth 
every effort to procure trained teachers, but 
whence are the students to be obtained, and who 



Bengal 123 

is to train them ? The unquestioned future for 
every Hindu and Moslem girl is matrimony and 
it is therefore only from amongst those who have 
been widowed in childhood that teachers can be 
drawn. But in spite of all that has been written 
and said on this subject the necessary education 
is still denied to them, by religion, custom, and 
prejudice. In the Hindu Female Training School 
in Calcutta, started by Government to sur- 
mount some of the initial prejudice in regard 
to the training of " parda-nashin " women, there 
are only seven pupils. They are all widows of 
above sixteen years and though they are not 
admitted unless, when children, they have been 
through the fourth standard, their brains have 
remained fallow for six years and the problem 
of their training is a difficult one. In the only 
other Government institution for non-Christians 
there are at present thirteen Moslems and nine 
Hindus, and many of them have to be taught 
reading and writing as well as the art of teaching. 
It will thus be seen that though the ultimate 
solution of the dearth of teachers may be found 
in the utilization of the young widows, public 
opinion will have to undergo a considerable change 
before it is possible.i^ From the Brahma-Samaj 
community more is to be expected, and though 
the Brahma-Samaj Training Class in Calcutta is 
not at present in a flourishing condition, they 
certainly contribute a fair proportion of teachers. 
It is, however, from the Christian commxmity that 
18 Cf. Chap. VIII. 



1 24 Education of Women of India 

the teachers are chiefly drawn, and efforts are 
being made to secure their efficient training. Of 
the sixteen Training Institutions in Bengal 
thirteen are under mission management, and of 
192 Indian pupils, 175 are Christian. A whole- 
some sign of the growing spirit of unity is the 
amalgamation of the training classes of four 
missions in Calcutta into one Christian Normal 
Training College with an excellent staff and a 
good modern equipment. So far it is only for 
mistresses who are to teach in the vernacular. 
Even with the large contribution of Christian 
teachers, the demand immensely exceeds the 
supply. Even before her examination there is 
hardly one of the candidates who has not secured 
a good post. They are in demand in the first 
instance for mission schools, in Brahma-Samaj 
and non-sectarian institutions, and in Hindu 
and Model Primary schools. " The fact that they 
are Christians in a large number of cases is not 
considered a bar to their employment." 1^ The 
inference for missionary societies is obvious — 
that to supply all the girls' schools of Bengal 
with teachers of strong Christian character would 
contribute much to the coming of the Kingdom 
of God. As regards the type of training given, 
the drawback is the fact that, like the Code, it is 
too Western. A solution may probably be found 
if the British educators are allowed to supple- 
ment their home-training by further studies on 
the spot, before undertaking work — a slower 
^^ Inspectress's Report. 



Bengal 125 

process but a surer one. Secondary training is 
yet to be developed both by missions and by 
Government. One Indian teacher has taken her 
degree of Bachelor of Teaching from a Mission 
school, but this is an isolated instance. 

The relation of the statistics of Higher educa- 
tion to Primary is striking ; only 11 % of the girls 
at school are beyond the stage of just being able 
to read and write, while only 319 girls in the 
whole province are beyond the Middle stage. An 
immediate question is. How to retain the girls in 
the higher classes. Social and religious considera- 
tions weigh heavily here, as in the problem 
of the supply of teachers, but another influence 
may be, as elsewhere, the nature of the curriculum. 
This question has underlain much of the previous 
discussion, and is wide and far reaching in its 
scope. Indian education must have its own 
" Paradise " ; the acme of Western civilization 
ought not to be reproduced in India, if diversity 
and not uniformity is the higher law. There is 
something lacking if the Mahakali committee 
speak of a " feeling of relief " in an escape from 
Government education, and some compromise is 
surely possible between their system and that of 
the Anglicized Boarding School. Destructive 
criticism is easy and there is plenty of it in Indian 
educational circles. On the one hand, the mission 
authorities say that they are bound by the hard 
and fast rules of the Code which conditions their 
grant, on the other, there is a great deal more 
liberality and elasticity in the Government policy 



126 Education of Women of India 

than is commonly imagined, and a really well 
thought out curriculum on new lines would 
probably not mean the forfeiture of a grant. It 
is true that schools which vary from the type 
recognized at home are not aided by Government, 
but the Indian situation is different and it is 
probably for the good of the whole system that 
they should be under Government supervision 
and receive the impetus which comes from 
sharing in the educational scheme. Here is the 
opportunity for private enterprise and initiative ; 
with co-operation on the part of the missionary 
societies in Calcutta it would surely be possible 
to remove one of their girls' High schools to the 
country and to give a practical demonstration of 
what modern education on Indian lines might 
mean. This would be no easy task and could 
only be accomplished by a staff who had inti- 
mately studied the conditions of Indian life and 
thought. This would be the most effectual 
" constructive criticism." 

The extension of Primary education is a crucial 
problem throughout India ; here in Bengal 95 % 
of girls of school age are absolutely outside the 
educational pale. The wonder is, considering the 
inveterate indifference of the majority of parents 
and guardians to female education, even when it 
is freely given, that any progress is made at all. 
On the one hand there is the question whether it 
is advisable to encourage it too warmly, when 
the available supply of trained teachers is so dis- 
proportioned to the need ; on the other, the 




u 

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o 

CD 

C 
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3 

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Bengal 127 

multiplication of schools and the acceptance of 
female education by pubhc opinion would create 
a condition more favourable to the ready supply 
of teachers. The new Code for Primary schools 
introduced in 1910, which is in accord with 
modern educational principles, may prove more 
attractive than the former. Finance is an 
important matter. Many villages are too poor 
to maintain separate pathshalas for their 
daughters ; there are at present 69,000 girls in 
boys' Primary schools as against 75,000 in 
Primary schools for girls only. The result is 
that in these villages the stricter castes do not 
send their girls to school and even the others are 
withdrawn after the infant stage. In the Second- 
ary schools in the cities many girls who can well 
afford to pay are enjoying a first-class education 
for two shillings and eightpence a month at the 
expense of Government and missionary societies. 
This looks as if a re-adjustment of funds might 
increase the Primary statistics. Here again is an 
unlimited sphere for private enterprise ; the 
mission school for girls only, staffed by Indian 
women teachers under European supervision is 
welcome and sure of success. The system of 
Zenana teaching both by missionaries and Govern- 
ment teachers is, as in Eastern Bengal, of great 
use in breaking down prejudice, and though 
apparently slow and costly work, it is invaluable. 
It might possibly prove to be for the good of 
the whole system if some small central Board or 
consultative committee were formed to promote 



128 Education of Women of India 

co-operation in the development of future plans 
between the Government and the various private 
enterprises. 

The future of female education in Bengal is 
partly a question of administration, partly that of 
a greater number of European educators in 
sympathy with the genius of the country, partly 
that of a reformed curriculum, but more funda- 
mentally it is a question of religious evolution. 



VI 

INTERESTING INSTITUTIONS IN THE 
UNITED PROVINCES AND PANJAB 

" The world exists in order to grow souls under the 
eyes of a patient, tireless, yearning Teacher." 

From Hindustan Review. 

IT is not proposed to give in this chapter a 
detailed account of general organization 
and of the forces at work. There is a de- 
finite similarity in the system of administration 
throughout all India, though it varies in its 
adaptation to indigenous institutions : one policy 
underlies missionary efforts, though they differ 
remarkably in the personal factor ; the new 
Indian spirit is everywhere more or less articulate. 
But it is worth while to lay emphasis on certain 
phases of the problem of female education in 
the United Provinces, and on certain institu- 
tions in the Panjab which are typical of the 
complexity of the situation, or present unique 
characteristics. 

In the Quinquennial Survey the United Pro- 
vinces occupy an unsatisfactory position at the 
bottom of the list of comparative percentages, 
showing only 1.2 per cent, of girls of school -going 
age at school. This percentage has, however, risen 



130 Education of Women of India 

in 1910 to 1.33, and the total number of institu- 
tions has increased from 1,067 ^o 1,266 — a credit- 
able advance in the face of the difficulties to be 
encountered. The " impatient idealist " must 
beware, however, of extravagant hopes of trans- 
formation in a country where progress must of 
necessity be slow and of an evolutionary nature. 
Under more stringent inspection and regulation, 
the rapid advance in the early part of the decade 
has proved to a certain extent fictitious, and due 
to an over-hasty desire on the part of the educa- 
tional authorities to move with the times. Local 
committees had apparently started schools for 
which there was no demand and for which they 
were unable to procure teachers. One Inspectress 
reports that in some cases, on a surprise visit, 
no teacher was found at all ; in others, though 
the teachers were present, no work was being 
done.i Artificial efforts to hasten the pace were 
attended only by a spurious success ; for example, 
a capitation grant of four annas a month was 
given in 1906 for every girl attending a boys' 
school, with a resulting increase of 4000 in the 
statistics of attendance ; but a careful inspection 
and subsequent removal of the grant proved that 
the girls had simply been procured to sit in the 
schoolroom without receiving any attention, and 
that they left in a year or two as ignorant as when 
they entered it. Quite possibly some of the 
annas had found their way into the pockets of 
the parents who had been so obliging as to lend 
1 Public Instruction Report, United Provinces, 1910. 



Interesting Institutions 131 

their girls. The latest statistics show a drop of 
3000 in the total number of female scholars, but 
this is entirely among the girls attending boys' 
schools, and is due to the more efficient adminis- 
tration. The slight increase in the Secondary 
schools and in the girls' Primary schools is a sign 
of genuine progress and may be welcomed as 
such. The policy of the Government is one of 
slow advance after careful investigation and en- 
listment of local co-operation. About the year 
1907, every District Officer was instructed to 
form a special committee to watch over the in- 
terests of girls' education in his district, and 
some of these committees have done excellent 
work, while others have been baffled by the 
difficulties to be faced and by lack of funds. 
Others, again, as indicated above, have tended 
to make haste too quickly. The fact that Indian 
non-Christian men of good social position have 
been found willing to serve on these committees 
is an indication of general advance and of growing 
sympathy with every effort for enlightenment 
and reform. 2 

As regards Inspectresses, the United Provinces 
are better staffed at present than any other 
province excepting possibly Madras, and yet the 
overwork is no less, for the districts are very 
large, and in many cases the schools are quite 
inaccessible to the woman traveller. But in a 
country where parda is strict, and where registers 

^ Cf. Young India and the Education of Girls, E, R. 
M'Neile (C.M.S.). 



1 32 Education of Women of India 

may only represent fictitious girls, and where 
moreover the work of the Inspectress is much 
needed for the stimulus and sympathy she can 
give, the system well repays the necessary expense, 
and will probably admit of yet further expansion. 
An effort is also being made to secure voluntary 
co-operation on the part of both English and 
Indian ladies who are willing and able to help. 
One Indian lady has given a great deal of her 
time to the inspection of the Government Primary 
schools in her district ; another lady, a missionary 
with exceptional qualifications, is secretary of a 
local educational committee. 

Table of Schools for Indian Girls in the United 
Provinces.* 



Under Public 


Management. 




Under Private 
Management. 


Government. 


Local or 

Municipal 

Branch. 




-a 

73, 


■6 
•a 

c 


High Schools 








6 


•• 


Middle- 
English . 




I 




18 


4 


Vernacular 








7 




Primary . 


57 


355 




499 


17 


Training Schools 


I 






7 


3 




58 


i 356 




537 


24 



3 Formed from Statistical Tables III and I HA. in Public 
Instruction Report for United Provinces, 1910. 



Interesting Institutions 133 

The problem of finding teachers is even more 
acute here than elsewhere. It seems hardly 
credible that a teacher could be found in regular 
employment who was unable to write words of 
three letters to dictation, yet such is a recorded 
fact. Her ignorance had been concealed by a 
memorized knowledge of the Koran. Of sixty- 
two Primary schools sanctioned by Government 
in 1909 it has only been possible to open twenty- 
one because of the entire lack of teachers with 
even the minimum of qualification. 

There are two lines of spontaneous Indian 
effort : the Arya Samaj , whose schools conform to 
the Government Code and regulations, and neo- 
Hinduism,^ which has produced Mrs Besant's 
school for Indian girls at Benares. The Arya 
Samaj have a good training-school for teachers 
at Dehra Dun, students from which may be found 
teaching in their schools in other parts of India. 
A High-school department has recently been added 
to it, and every effort is being put forth to make 
it a strong educational centre. The school at 
Benares is in connexion with the Hindu Central 
College, and poses as a definite revolt from the 
anglicizing tendency of Government and mission 
schools. It receives no grant, and as yet has not 
even applied for inspection. The Government 
is considered to " favour Christian and mission 
schools," and therefore, though there is the same 
lack of funds here as elsewhere, the promoters 
will have none of it or its money ! Freedom to 

'' C/. The Renaissance in India, C. F. Andrews. 



134 Education of Women of India 

shape their own curriculum is also a dominant 
motive. To enter the school and see over a 
hundred beautifully dressed Indian girls, almost 
all of the Brahman caste, sitting in groups of six 
or seven, on bright carpets, the class-rooms well 
separated in the spacious airy building, was 
certainly to feel that here one might find a solu- 
tion of the curriculum problem and a construc- 
tive theory of Indian education. " A training in 
conduct and religion is what Indians, as a rule, 
value most for their women — the work for those 
going beyond the rudiments is too bookish in 
character." ^ Here the teachers are free to 
saturate the instruction throughout with the 
ethical elements of a religion acceptable to the 
parents, to edit their own text -books, to emphasize 
the study of the vernaculars and Indian classics 
without the strain of examinations. The pupils 
stay longer than in other schools : many 
" married " girls of fifteen and sixteen years are 
in the upper forms. One particularly bright 
child of fourteen told us she was to be there for 
four years while her husband studied in England. 
Thus there is time really to influence the character 
and mind of the girls. Yet, on analysis, from the 
purely educational point of view the school was 
distinctly disappointing. As regards the staff, 
the Head-mistress, an English lady, claimed no 
knowledge of the vernacular, and though her 
intercourse with the girls seemed most cordial 
and sympathetic, it was necessarily limited, and 
^ Public Instruction Report, United Provinces, p. 34. 



Interesting Institutions 135 

still more limited was her knowledge of their 
studies. An American with the degree of B.Sc., 
a Brahman, wife of one of the College professors, 
who had been educated in a convent, three 
mission-taught girls, and sundry other teachers 
of a nondescript character, completed the number. 
English was taught throughout, from class III. 
upwards, and used as a medium of instruction in 
classes VI. and VII., but the degree of fluency of 
the girls therein seemed hardly to justify this 
method. Many of the ordinary text-books were 
in use, and except for the moral catechisms and 
some stress laid on Indian art and Hinduism in 
the drawing lessons, the difference of the cur- 
riculum seemed more theoretical than actual. 
The theories are, however, suggestive, and when 
traced to the basal thought that education must 
be founded on the hereditary instinct and natural 
environment of the child they are not in reality 
revolutionary but compatible with the construc- 
tive system and ideals of the Christian religion. 

The Crosthwaite High School at Allahabad 
shows possibilities of a different nature. It was 
started privately in Lucknow city some eighteen 
years ago by a committee of Indian gentlemen 
and Government officials, and was afterwards 
removed for the sake of a larger site and fresher 
air. A long, low, roomy building, with deep 
verandahs, forms the central school, with two 
hostels attached to it, in one of which twenty 
Moslem girls were residing, in the other six 
Hindus. A considerable number of day pupils, 



136 Education of Women of India 

without restriction as to creed, are drawn from 
Allahabad. Tuition and conveyance for day 
pupils are given free, but the charge for boarders 
meets the cost. The Government Code is followed 
throughout, and the knowledge of English, tested 
by recitation and questioning on subject-matter, 
seemed of a thorough quality. The school 
illustrated in miniature most of the usual 
problems. It was marvellous that Moslem girls 
of really good family should have been allowed 
to come to a boarding-school, some from far 
distant States, and there was a certain pathos in 
the sight of them being taught by any kind of 
woman who had " learnt to read and write at 
home," and who in some cases might almost have 
been their ayah. This description applies only 
to the lower forms, but in these classes girls are 
at the most formative age, and many would not 
stay for the whole course. One teacher of this 
type was actually engaged in nursing her baby 
while giving an arithmetic lesson, and one 
wondered which of the two suffered more — the 
lesson or the baby ! The Head-mistress was a 
young Indian Christian graduate from the 
Isabella Thoburn College, full of energy and 
enthusiasm for what seemed so difficult a task. 
She herself had to take three lessons a day, which 
left little leisure for the superintendence of the 
lower school with its double vernacular (Hindi 
and Urdu) standards throughout. A similar 
position in a school at home would have been 
occupied by a much older woman with many 



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Interesting Institutions 137 

years' experience of life. A question as to the 
religious teaching given elicited the following 
reply : " The Mohammedan teacher has her own 
girls ; I teach the few Christians, and the Hindus 
look after their own bathings ! " There is no 
question here of Indianizing the curriculum. 

In turning to the specifically Christian institu- 
tions, it has again to be noted that the missionaries 
have been the pioneers of education, that an over- 
whelming proportion of the aided schools are 
under their management, and that a creditable 
proportion of Christian girls in the High stages 
(552 out of 759 Indian girls) is maintained. No 
account of women's education in India would be 
complete without a full description of the Isabella 
Thoburn College, or, as it is called throughout the 
Northern provinces, the " Lai Bagh " (Rose 
Garden). From a tiny beginning in 1870 as a 
bazaar school in Lucknow, with half a dozen 
Christian girls, it has grown by successive stages 
to a splendidly equipped collegiate institution, 
the portals of which may be entered by a child as 
a tiny " rosebud " for the Kindergarten, and from 
whence the full-blown B.A. may emerge some 
sixteen years later. The College and its latest 
additions stand as a memorial to two strong 
personalities, Isabella Thoburn, the founder, and 
Lilavati Singh, whose early death in 1909, when 
Vice-Principal of the College, removed one of the 
Indian leaders of women's education. The ideals 
after which they strove and the spirit of passionate 
sacrifice for others which dominated their lives 



138 Education of Women of India 

form a strong tradition in the school. The 
American sense of community hfe which enters 
so markedly into their schools and colleges has 
been transferred with wise adaptation to the 
Indian environment ; and the former pupils of the 
" Lai Bagh," scattered throughout India, are still 
under the glamour of their school days and are 
working out its inspiration. Self-government in 
all that regards the common interest is the rule 
of the College and Normal departments, and the 
same principle is being slowly established in the 
High school in the hope of developing the sense 
of responsibility so greatly needed in the Indian 
character. The girls are practically all Christian, 
but occasionally a non-Christian girl is found 
taking advantage of the splendid education which 
she could obtain nowhere else. The Zenana 
school, opened in 1909, is attended by some Hindu 
and Mohammedan girls desirous of a simple 
course with domestic science, and it is expected 
that this department will gradually increase. 
There is also a special hostel for Hindu or 
Mohammedan girls which has not yet been much 
utilized. The staff consists of seven or eight 
American graduates and about fifteen Indian 
teachers, some of whom are graduates also. There 
are no untrained teachers. This proportion in a 
school of some 200 pupils, and a College and 
Normal department of about 40, is refreshing 
after other institutions, but it in no way satisfies 
the standard of efficiency aimed at by the 
directors. The Normal department is of special 



Interesting Institutions 139 

importance, as teachers are supplied from it to all 
parts of Northern India. No student is admitted 
to the senior course who has not passed the 
Matriculation or equivalent examination, and 
the Government Report testifies to the thorough- 
ness of the training given. A lower qualification 
is accepted for the Kindergarten course. The 
Government Code is followed throughout, and there 
is thus no question of an experimental curriculum 
on Indian lines. The College is under a Board of 
Directors which includes two prominent Indian 
gentlemen, and is in connexion with the American 
Methodist Mission. 

The Church Missionary Society has an excellent 
boarding-school for Christian girls at Benares 
with about 100 pupils. The central schools for 
the Christian community form a very important 
part of the work of any mission, and it is entirely 
due to them that the creditable percentage of 
Christian girls in the Secondary stages is main- 
tained. Where a Normal department can be 
added, their influence on the non-Christian com- 
munity and on the general educational situation 
is very marked. Unfortunately some mission 
committees have still a tendency to appoint a 
pupil to a post too soon, and the numbers are not 
as large as they might be. The Benares class has 
at present nine students who entered it with 
Middle Anglo- Vernacular qualifications ; its 
special feature, in addition to the ordinary subjects, 
is an experimental attempt to give some concep- 
tion of the Hindu environment of religious 



140 Education of Women of India 

thought to the students. The Indian Christian 
of the second or third generation tends to be 
totally isolated in idea and thought from other 
Indians, and this tendency is often accentuated 
in mission schools. It is therefore exceedingly 
important that those who are to influence Hindu 
life as teachers in mission or Government schools 
should, in the course of their training, form some 
clear and correct conception of the religious en- 
vironment of their future pupils. Experimental 
work of this type should prove most useful in any 
future developments of Normal training which 
missionary societies may be contemplating. 

There is throughout a pleasant spirit of co- 
operation between the various educational mis- 
sionaries, and between them and the Government 
authorities. There is a Missionary Educational 
Union for the Province which the Inspectresses 
attend offtcially. An annual Teachers' Confer- 
ence is held in February, and it is probable that 
in the future co-operation may pass from theory 
to actual fact in the development of further work. 
A striking lack in the missionary contribution is 
the absence of any school of really first-class 
character for non-Christian girls, such as exist in 
Bombay and Calcutta. The educational work 
for boys has been fully developed, but the parallel 
opportunity for girls which the changing times 
have created has yet to be seized. It may be 
argued that the Isabella Thoburn school has 
arrangements for non-Christian girls, but even in 
these changing times there are few non-Christians 



Interesting Institutions 141 

who would be willing to risk their daughters in a 
boarding-school among such an overwhelming 
number of Christian girls, whereas first-class 
schools starting fresh with no tradition would be 
sufficiently in touch with the new movement to 
attract pupils by their sheer efficiency. In this 
direction and in the training of teachers the 
standard must be set by the missionary authorities 
if their reputation as pioneers is to be maintained. 
The situation in the Panjab differs again only 
in degree. While there has been no ebb in the 
increasing tide of pupils — an increase of 1328 in 
1909, and of 3732 in 1910, making a present total 
of over 42,000 girls under instruction — the problem 
of administration and inspection in a strictly 
parda country is as difficult as elsewhere, and 
there are stories of the inefficiency of the teachers 
which surpass even those told of other provinces. 
The municipalities vary greatly in their enthusiasm 
for the education of girls — Amritsar, for instance, 
being well suppHed with thirty-five girls' schools, 
whereas Lahore has only one of this type. The 
missions have as elsewhere the system of boarding- 
schools for Christian girls, and carry on extensive 
work, chiefly of a Primary nature, among non- 
Christians of all races and creeds. Occasionally 
a non-Christian girl is found in a Christian 
boarding-school. Some of these schools are 
specially commended by the Inspectress for their 
teaching in domestic economy and sewing. " The 
Sialkot boarding-school divides the children into 
famihes of twelve girls who each do their own 



142 Education of Women of India 

cooking, washing, and housework, even the little 
ones helping." « St Stephen's Girls' School 
(S. P. G.) has a special lace department where 
any girl who wishes to learn English may earn 
the money to pay the requisite fee. The lace 
produced is of a marketable quality, and not of 
the type which passes from bazaar to bazaar in 
Great Britain. The work of the Kinnaird Girls' 
High School, Lahore, is similar to that of the 
Bombay school '' under the auspices of the same 
society (Z. B. M. M.). It is intended mainly for 
Indian Christian girls, but contains a certain pro- 
portion of others. The average age of leaving is 
about sixteen. Its training class is of special 
interest. Women students in the Panjab are 
allowed to take the Junior Anglo-Vernacular 
training after matriculation, though, in the case 
of men the same examination is open only to 
graduates. In spite of this the girls generally 
stand fairly high in the lists, one of them recently 
taking the second place. The class, however, 
averages only some five students, though the 
school has over 160 girls. There is another 
excellent High school for Indian non-Christian 
girls in Lahore under the superintendence of an 
Indian Christian lady. 

Here, too, slowly but surely, the voice of Young 
India is making itself heard in a new desire and 
a new effort. Lawyers, doctors, Government 
servants, are seeking for their wives and daughters 

^ Public Instruction Report, Punjab, 1910. 
7 Cf. p. 178. 




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Interesting Institutions 143 

an education which, if not equal to their own, will 
a least be a sufficient compromise between the 
old status and the new ideas to which they give 
utterance from public platforms and in the press. 
The reform sects, notably the Arya Samaj, are 
ready with a definite educational policy of their 
own. They have a special orphanage at Feroze- 
pore, and a considerable number of schools ; 
the Dev Samaj, a new rallying-point, has two or 
more schools ; there is a Sikh boarding-school near 
Amritsar ; and, " in opposition to these reforming 
Hindu societies, at least one orthodox Hindu 
girls' school has been opened lately. Whether 
the activity of the reformers will force the ortho- 
dox Hindus to take an interest in girls' education 
and to start a network of schools in opposition 
remains to be seen." ^ The Maharani of Burdwar 
is noted for her efforts in this direction, and her 
schools, the Vedic Putri Pathshala and the Khatri 
Girls' School at Lahore, both aim at having 
High departments. Absolutely unique in its aim, 
management, and curriculum is the Victoria May 
Girls' High School, Lahore, now known as Queen 
Mary College. The idea of establishing a High 
school for Indian girls of good family was put 
forward by certain Indian ladies at the parda 
party held in honour of the visit of the then 
Princess of Wales in November 1905, and the 
possibility of putting this proposal into effect was 

8 Female Education in North India. East and West, 
January 191 1. M. P. Western, Principal, Victoria May 
School. 



144 Education of Women of India 

attained by the munificence of certain leading 
Native States in the Panjab. The school is under 
the management of five leading Indian gentlemen 
representing different creeds, and of two of the 
highest officials in the Province. Its curriculum 
is, so far as the writer's experience extends, the 
only one in which a definite constructive theory 
has been put forth for the education of Indian 
girls on such lines as combine excellent modern 
education with training suitable to their future 
environment.^ Its ideals are defined in the 
following extract from the prospectus. " The 
proposed education is to be first and foremost 
womanly, therefore pupils will not be prepared 
for Matriculation until alternative courses of 
study suitable for girls be framed by the Educa- 
tion Department. The Indian ideals of self- 
sacrificing motherhood and simplicity of life will 
be held sacred, and the education given, while 
conducted on the best modern methods, seeks in 
every way to guard the ideal of the Indian wife 
in her home. For this reason the curriculum 
includes lessons on the care of children's health, 
simple remedies for ordinary illnesses, ' first aid,' 
invalid cookery, and science as applied to the 
home, in the shape of the elementary laws of 
sanitation, ventilation, etc." Great attention is 
paid to the vernaculars and to the beautiful 

9 The prospectus of the Conjeevaram School (South 
India) presents several unique features. The Hindus 
consider it their best school. A visit was, unfortu- 
nately, impossible. 



Interesting Institutions 145 

Oriental scripts. Advanced pupils may study- 
Persian or Sanskrit. A speciality is made of 
colloquial English, but there is no study of it as 
advanced literature. Moral instruction is given 
from the beautiful stories and poems of all 
religions, no sacred book being excluded, and is as 
effective as can be in an institution necessarily 
limited in its religious life and instruction. A great 
effort is being made to attract pupils from the 
families whose sons attend the Chiefs' College in 
Lahore ; six or eight special suites of rooms are 
being reserved for rajahs' daughters and their 
necessary attendants, in new buildings attached 
to the Principal's house, and such facilities may 
do much to break down the barrier which has 
hitherto separated these classes from modern 
education. This school may serve not only as 
an inspiration to its actual pupils, but may have a 
reflex influence on the whole scheme of education. 
For instance, a course of lectures has recently 
been started in connection with it to demonstrate 
to Indian ladies the real needs of local girls' 
schools, and to induce them to act where pos- 
sible as helpers and advisers. To turn what has 
hitherto proved an obstructive force into a defi- 
nitely constructive one would surely be an 
excellent policy. 

The Land of the Five Rivers has ever been a 
land of romance and of stirring life, and the modern 
movement for the enlightenment of its woman- 
kind has still the same elements, and is full of the 
promise of the future. 



VII 
SIDELIGHTS ON SOME NATIVE STATES 

" Vulgarity is unknown in India. This alone is 
education and of the highest order. Reading and 
writing are minor to it." 

From the Indian Ladies' Magazine. 

TO the student of Indian problems the 
Native States present in many cases a 
survival of former conditions which 
elsewhere have been swept away under the more 
direct influence of British rule ; in others freedom 
from the criticism to which an alien rule is liable 
has allowed advanced rulers to experiment on the 
most modern lines. The term " Native State " 
is itself capable of very diverse interpretation.^" 
There are in all about seven hundred districts so 
called, with a total population of over 62 million, 
and varying in size from the great southern 
State of Hyderabad, with an area of over 82,000 
square miles, to parcels of land about the size of 
an average country estate in England. The 
British Government takes direct cognizance of 
some hundred of these in varying degrees of 
relationship. Some States are entirely responsible 

^^ Administrative, Problems of British India, book ii., 
chap. i. J. Chailley. 

146 



Sidelights on Some Native States 147 

for their o^vn internal government with a British 
Resident tactfully fulfilling his difficult office ; in 
others the control is more direct, under an officer 
appointed as administrator by the Government till 
such time as the State finances or internal order 
may justify once more the revival of relative inde- 
pendence under an heir of the d3mastic family. 
There is thus every variety of ruler, from the 
rajah who holds the time-honoured doctrine of 
" L'etat c'est moi," and whose State recalls the 
prejudices, barbarities, and general practices of 
the Europe of the Middle Ages, to the virtuous 
chiefs who strive to rule on modern principles of 
order and justice for the welfare of their people. 
There are rajahs whose womenfolk are the strictest 
of parda-nashin and others whose daughters may 
disport themselves in English society at home 
to their hearts' content, a curious bye-product 
being the rani who is parda-nashin in her own 
State but not when she comes out into the world 
abroad. 

It is natural that only amongst the more pro- 
gressive States is any opportunity found of study- 
ing the question of female education ; in others 
even the first beginnings are totally absent. 
The present chapter is in no sense a complete 
survey, and only offers a few notes which may 
indicate the general trend. It is difficult in many 
cases to obtain exact information, as the British 
Government are wisely chary of giving too much. 
The official reports, as M. Chailley puts it, wrap 
up blame in velvet and distribute praise with a 



148 Education of Women of India 

liberal hand, and a letter to a native diwan 11 will 
not always procure an educational report with 
the same promptitude as it would in British 
territory. There is also the never-to-be-forgotten 
fact that " All the world's a stage," and at times 
the temptation to play a part, to produce a sem- 
blance of things which speak of progress and 
yet lack reality, is too strong for the Oriental 
mind. Thus a school housed in a magnificent 
building with four hundred girls on its roll may 
prove to have less than two hundred in daily 
attendance, though each child is in receipt of a 
monthly " stipend " from the State for the honour 
of her attendance ; and " God save the Queen " 
may be cheerily sung in honour of the beloved 
Empress of whose death all India has not yet 
heard ! 

Some of the smaller Native States are closely 
linked educationally with the adjacent British 
province ; the Inspectors visit them, and their 
statistics are included in the Provincial Report. 
Thus the Quinquennial Survey includes over 
150,000 square miles of Native State territory, 
chiefly in the Bombay Presidency. In others, 
with which the Government of India maintains 
direct political relations, the educational policy 
depends entirely on the native ruler, and reflects 
his personality and enthusiasm. A very striking 
instance of this is Baroda, a small state with a 
population of about two million. A policy of 
stringent reform was inaugurated there about 
11 Chief minister. 



Sidelights on Some Native States 149 

1875, during the minority of the present Gaekwar, 
and has had its effect on the position of women. 
Two acts, legaHzing the re-marriage of widows 
and raising the marriage age to twelve, have 
marked the tide of progress during the last decade. 
The educational movement dates from 1871, and 
there is now a complete system for boys from free 
Primary education to scholarships in Japanese 
Universities. The scheme for girls is less am- 
bitious, but there are Primary schools in every 
village, teaching the ordinary curriculum up to 
Standard IV., a fair proportion of Secondary 
schools in which cooking is also taught by the 
teacher or by a Brahman cook, and a central 
High school in the capital with a Training college 
attached. Any girl of promise can secure a 
scholarship to it after the fourth or fifth Standard, 
and after a five years' course is certain of employ- 
ment. The curriculum is very thorough, including 
astronomy, botany, mathematics, and the ordinary 
Normal course. There are at present about fifty 
students in the college, and a steadily increasing 
stream of applicants. My informant stated that 
there was no prejudice here against widows as 
teachers, and that even Brahman widows who 
were poorly off had entered the profession. The 
statistics are of special interest as showing the 
effect of compulsory education within a limited 
area. This experiment was introduced, for the 
first time in Indian history, in one district of 
Baroda in 1893, and was extended to the whole 
province in 1904. The age for girls is seven to ten, 



150 Education of Women of India 

for boys from seven to twelve. The numbers in 
the girls' case rose from 9 % of school age at school 
in 1905 to 47% in 1910 — an almost incredible 
rise in comparison with the slow movement in 
other parts of India. There is naturally a good 
deal to be said as to the wisdom of a policy which 
is so far in advance of the desire of the people. 
Some are said to be flying from Baroda into the 
adjacent British territory to escape what appears 
to them a meaningless tyranny .^^ The people are 
very poor and heavily taxed ; they want the 
children to work, or to take charge of the other 
children while the women work in the fields. 
The richer parents, again, object to the girls leaving 
the house, as par da is fairly strict. There are 
pathetic tales of school-mistresses who, in addition 
to their scholastic duties, must start an hour and 
a half before the appointed time to compel un- 
willing feet into the path of knowledge, and stories 
of children who manage to arrive half an hour 
before the closing time in order to kindly swell 
the statistics of attendance. Then there is the 
usual prejudice against the unpractical nature of 
the curriculum, and its slavish similarity to the 
boys' course. But after all discounting of stat- 
istics and allowance for the undercurrent of 
revolt, there is evidently a good deal of honest 
educational work being done in Baroda, with some 
measure of success. There is even some talk of 
creating a Central Women's Department, where 
special needs might receive full consideration. 
12 Public Instruction Report, Bombay, 1910, p. 24. 



Sidelights on Some Native States 151 

One Inspectress, a Parsi lady, is at present 
working there, and assistants are shortly to be 
appointed. 

In the great Mohammedan State of Hyderabad 
progress is naturally slower. Though the greater 
proportion of the inhabitants are Hindus, the 
Moslem influence, proceeding from the Nizam's 
Court, is the predominating one. The Wesleyan 
and American Baptist missions began pioneer 
work in the Primary education of girls about 
1880, and have steadily developed it by tactful 
measures to higher stages. Effort on the part of 
the Government has been made only in recent 
years, and is not yet a very important factor, 
though the Nizam's parda school at the capital 
is the beginning of better things. In 1905 there 
were only 4467 girls under instruction out of a 
population of over eleven million ! ^^ 

Mysore also owes its first movement towards 
female education to missionary influence. In 
1840 the first mission school for girls was opened 
in Bangalore, and in 1868 the first Government 
school. As in other parts of India, girls are to be 
found in the hohli or local boys' school, but the 
usual difficulties prevent this method from being 
really effective. A great impulse was given to 
the whole enterprise not only in Mysore but in 
all southern India by the establishment, in 1881, 
of the Maharani's Girls' School in the capital. 
The Maharani has • also taken a close personal 
interest in its progress. This school, raised to the 
1^ Imperial Gazetteer of India. 



152 Education of Women of India 

dignity of a college, ranks as a first-class institu- 
tion ; its Head is a student from Newnham 
College, and the rest of the staff has proportional 
qualiiications. The education is entirely free, but 
entrance at first was limited only to high-caste 
families, and its extension now to Christians and 
respectable girls of low caste is under various 
restrictions. As a result the college has done 
much to break the barrier which exists between 
high-caste women and education. The cur- 
riculum includes the Kindergarten stage and a 
department of domestic science. There are at 
present some 400 pupils, including many Brahman 
widows, who are being trained as teachers, and 
also some former pupils who return to complete 
their course, bringing their children with them. 
Besides this splendid effort in the capital, the 
Government has encouraged the formation of 
local committees for the development of education 
in the different districts. By 1904 there were 
243 girls' schools and colleges, with a creditable 
percentage of four girls in the hundred at school. 
The London Missionary Society and others have 
extensive work here, and contribute considerably 
towards these statistics. Probably the most 
striking feature in the educational situation in 
Mysore is the introduction, in 1908, of definite 
religious teaching in the Government schools. This 
subject is more fully treated in a subsequent 
chapter. 

Next to Baroda, the southern State of Travan- 
core has the highest percentage of girls at school, 



Sidelights on Some Native States 153 

namely, 23.3%. This is largely due to the fact 
that 31% of the population are Christians, and 
to the thorough work of the London Missionary 
Society ; but the present Maharaj stands for 
educational reform, and an official effort is also 
made for the advancement of women. A some- 
what similar impetus to that lent by the 
Maharani's College was given to the education 
of girls in Travancore by the establishment there 
of the Maharajah's College for girls under a fully 
qualified English Head-mistress, who has since 
been succeeded by an Indian lady. These two 
Indian institutions stand out beyond all others 
as examples of progressive native policy on wise 
lines. 

The great group of Rajput States in the heart 
of which the British Government holds under its 
direct control the key lands of Ajmer-Merwara, 
have a history of romance and chivalry which 
might well have augured a leading place for their 
women in the modern movement, and yet it is 
just this very chivalry which shields them from 
its touch. The Rajput princesses of the ancient 
days were no pale, languishing maidens. They 
sallied forth armed and on horseback to lead a 
forlorn hope, or closed the gates of the castle 
against a lord who returned without the spoil of 
victory from the field. When the doom of their 
tribe was at hand and the Moslem hosts surged 
round the sacred city of Chitore, they passed in 
solemn procession to one common nuptial fire, 
while their: lords perished in the wild holocaust 



154 Education of Women of India 

of johdr}'^ What wonder that, where the women 
were of this temper, their husbands and sons were 
able to defy all odds ! i^ Children of the sun and 
of the moon with all the glory of a mythic 
ancestry, the Rajputs have held apart from the 
seeming decadence of literary culture. True, 
there is the story of Jey Singh of the one hundred 
and nine virtues, whose mathematical calcula- 
tions in the seventeenth century rank with those 
of European scholars, but he stands alone and 
reveals by contrast the prevalent conditions. The 
character of the rulers has thus in modern times 
influenced educational progress amongst their 
people, though only a very small percentage of 
these are actually of Rajput descent. Alwar 
was the first State to move in 1842, and three 
years later Jaipur. It was not till some twenty 
years after that any official movement was made 
on behalf of women. The first girls' school was 
opened at Bharatpur in 1866,1® but the progress 
has been very slow with little headway. In 1901 
only two women out of every thousand could read. 
In 1905 there were, over the whole group of States, 
only fifty-three girls' schools, including the mission 
schools, and some of these were in a very poor 
state of efficiency. In Jaipur, which may be taken 

1* The great " war-sacrifice of honourable death " 
practised by the Rajputs. When resistance was un- 
avaiUng, they chose deatli in battle rather than 
surrender. 

15 From The Land of the Princes, Gabrielle Festing. 

!•> Imperial Gazetteer. 



Sidelights on Some Native States 155 

as the most advanced State educationally, the 
Government supports some eleven schools for 
girls. The principal one of these in the capital 
is supplied with splendid quarters. What money 
can do apart from personality has been done. 
The school, however, suffers most acutely from the 
prevailing difficulty of an inefficient staff. Some 
of the assistant teachers themselves are barely 
beyond the stage of being able to read and write, 
and thus the school as a whole lacks the attraction 
which is necessary to popularize education in a 
community where the hereditary tendency is 
against it. The marvel, however, is not that the 
school is not thoroughly modern, but that it is 
there at all ; and if we remember the rapid strides 
which have been made in other parts of India from 
even smaller beginnings, it augurs well for the 
future of Jaipur. Mission-work in Native States 
depends greatly on the personal relations which 
the pioneers succeed in establishing with their 
rulers, and the United Free Church Mission has, 
since its first entrance in 1866 to the Native 
State of Rajputana, been exceedingly tactful in 
this matter. Its educational work for boys has 
been well developed and has helped very consider- 
ably in the general advance ; on the women's side 
a great deal of careful pioneer work has been done 
by means of small schools and zenana visiting. 
There are at present sixteen of such schools with 
a total register of four hundred in six different 
States, also in Jaipur and elsewhere there is a 
considerable number of women under regular 



156 Education of Women of India 

instruction in the zenanas. The efficiency of the 
schools varies according as they are more or less 
accessible to the regular visitation of an English 
lady worker. The work is entirely Primary as 
the parda custom is strict, and the children are 
withdrawn at about eight years of age. 

The British District of Ajmer-Merwara does 
not, strictly speaking, fall within the purview of 
this chapter, but as it is essentially the key to all 
Rajasthan, its conditions have a reflex influence 
on the States, and the relation of the educational 
problems is a very vital one. The Government, 
while upholding the necessity of women's educa- 
tion, is greatly hampered in its efforts by financial 
considerations. The office of Inspectress, held 
since 1871 by a European lady educated in India, 
lapsed in 1892, and since then there has been no 
systematic effort to train teachers or effectually 
to supervise and co-ordinate the Government and 
independent schools. There are in all seven 
schools directly maintained by the Govern- 
ment, all of primitive type, quartered in rooms 
and courtyards rented in the bazaar, and of the 
140 pupils only twelve are in the second 
Standard. The Government Report frankly 
acknowledges the inefficiency of these schools 
and urges the re-appointment of an Inspectress. 
The energies of the United Free Church Mission 
have been largely devoted in the past decade to 
the education of their famine orphans and the 
girls of the Christian community. Their Girls' 
Boarding-School in Nasirabad is a well-equipped 







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Sidelights on Some Native States 157 

institution, and Normal work is under considera- 
tion. The tradition of Primary schools for non- 
Christians, since the first was founded in 1862, 
and of systematic zenana teaching, has been well 
maintained, and there are now about thirteen 
such with over four hundred pupils. There is, 
however, no really first-class education provided 
for the women of the non-Christian community, 
nor any attempt to meet the educational need of 
the changed times. The new spontaneous element 
is to be seen in the educational scheme of the Arya 
Samaj, which has apparently a more religious 
aspect here than in other provinces. They have 
two schools for girls in Ajmer : one an orphanage 
with twenty-eight pupils under an honorary 
mistress ; another, the Arya Putri Pathshala, is an 
excellent vernacular Primary school with some 
provision for further instruction. The Head 
mistress is a fully trained teacher brought from 
another province, and the school throughout 
showed evidence of order and system. There are 
over sixty girls on the roll, and it seemed in every 
way the most efficient institution for non-Christians 
in the district. The most striking testimony to 
the new spirit and the new desire for progress was 
found in a private school conducted in her own 
house by the widow of a former leader of the Arya 
community. It is true that in Ajmer the saying 
is still current that there cannot be two pens in 
one house, meaning thereby that to educate a girl 
is either to compass her own death or that of her 
future husband; but here some thirty-five girls, 



ijS Education of Women of India 

drawn not entirely from the Arya Samaj but also 
from the leading orthodox castes, came daily at 
their own expense to get such learning as might 
help to fit them for life in its newer aspects. The 
Head-mistress, who had studied with her former 
husband, was a highly cultured Indian lady with 
a beautiful and attractive grace of manner, full 
of enthusiasm for her work, but almost pathetically 
conscious of the failure of her school to attain the 
ideals she had set before her. " I know geography 
ought to be taught but I cannot procure a 
teacher." " I have never even had an oppor- 
tunity of learning English." " All my teachers 
teach for nothing ; it is voluntary work, and 
education should not be otherwise." The school 
to a large extent reflected the personality of the 
Head. The attendance nearly equalled the 
number on the roll ; far from reward being given, 
any children who did not come were fined for 
absence ; several older girls were there, including 
some who were married, and whose husbands were 
away from home also studying. The school is 
strictly parda, for the Arya community itself is 
only gradually advancing to freedom in this 
respect, and in any case the older pupils from the 
orthodox families would necessitate it. The 
education given is a thorough grounding in the 
Hindi and Urdu vernacular, with a limited 
amount of Sanskrit and careful instruction in 
needlework. 

The whole situation in Ajmer, taken as an 
index to the future development of the States of 



Sidelights on Some Native States 159 

Rajasthan, points to the need for the estabHsh- 
ment there of a first-class girls' school with an 
English Head-mistress to set the standard for the 
whole district, and this is strongly advocated in 
the Government Report, without, however, any 
prospect of immediate action. The class from 
which its pupils would be drawn would be at first 
a limited one, but its presence would to a certain 
extent increase the demand which is slowly but 
surely coming from men who realize the new need, 
and who know an efficient school when they 
see it. 

This very inadequate survey of the conditions 
in some of the leading Native States will have 
served its purpose if the reader has gathered from 
it that the modern movement for the education 
of women is felt throughout the whole of our vast 
Indian Empire, varying in degree, but commend- 
ing itself to the best Indian thought of every 
phase. It is not now a question of sporadic 
missionary effort or of a policy enforced by 
Government, but of a stream which is influencing 
the life of the people with an ever increasing 
momentum. 



VIU 

BOMBAY 

" The true reformer has not to write on a clean slate. 
His work is more often to complete the half-written 
sentence." — Ranade. 

THE problem of women's education in the 
Bombay Presidency is to a certain extent 
that of the whole of India in miniature. 
Nothing is better calculated to impress the mind 
with the variety of races and social conditions, 
the conflicting ideals and different stages of 
progress throughout the whole Indian Empire, 
than a study of these in a smaller area at close 
quarters. Under the rule of the Governor are 
some 20,000,000 souls, ^^ 75 % Hindus, 20 % Moslem, 
1% Jains, rather over 1% Christians, and some 
81,000 Parsis, whose social influence is out of all 
proportion to their numerical importance ; a 
territory of 123,000 square miles, embracing the 
sun-beaten deserts of Sind, the fertile plains of 
Gujerat, the Deccan districts ever subject to the 
spectre of famine, the Carnatic regions with their 
glorious forests, and the low-l3dng tract below the 

^^ Statistical Abstract of British India, 191 1. Ap- 
proximate figures. 

160 



Bombay i6i 

Ghats with its well-watered, broad reaches of 
alluvial soil — climates offering almost every 
variety of Indian possibilities except perhaps that 
of extreme cold. About a third of this territory 
belongs to Native States with a varying relation 
to the Presidency Government, and politically 
linked, though not strictly speaking attached, is 
the important State of Baroda with its 2,000,000 
inhabitants. Linguistically considered, the pro- 
vince has four main languages, Marathi, Gujerati, 
Kanarese, and Hindi, with numerous linked 
dialects, and English will by no means take 
you ever5rwhere, as some Anglophiles fondly 
imagine. Like all the rest of India it is a land of 
villages, only 19% of the people living in towns 
of more than 5000 inhabitants ; a land of child- 
marriage, only 50% of the girl children under 
ten being unmarried, and a land therefore of young 
widows. These three facts involve a great diffi- 
culty in the distribution of schools, a brief cur- 
riculum, and a dearth of teachers. From a 
historical point of view the province presents 
stratum upon stratum ; early records point to an 
Aryan settlement on the Indus amongst a people 
of Dravidian stock ; Persian, Bactrian, and White 
Hun invasions have left their mark, but always 
the prevailing element is the Hindu — absorbing 
and Hinduizing the successive streams. The 
peaceful dominance of Asoka^ is felt, and the 
Buddhist establishments whose records are left 

Asoka, ruler of India, B.C. 272-231. He is known 
as the Constantino of Buddhisni, 



1 62 Education of Women of India 

in the rock caves and temples must have been 
numerous and far-reaching. There are tales of 
chiefs who honoured alike Siva, Buddha, and 
Jaina In the seventh century a.d. trade brought 
the Parsis, a people of a book and a faith 
which still preserves them as a unity. In the 
eighth century came the first wave of the Moslem 
tide which was destined in later centuries to 
overrun the Deccan. In the fifteenth century 
came the Portuguese in search of " spices and 
Christians " ; there are caves to-day where the 
ruins of Catholic altars lie side by side with 
Buddhist semi-reliefs, mingled with the ever- 
present Hindu forms and figures. The romance 
of the province, however, lies in the history of the 
Mahrattas, whose forts dominate the frowning 
eminences of the Ghats, memorials of the gradual 
consolidation of the scattered Hindu chieftains, 
of prolonged struggle with Delhi, of internal strife, 
of defeat, of victory, until finally a new power 
from the West came to impose the dominance of 
the Pax Britannica upon the conflicting forces. 
The Presidency assumed something like its 
present form between 1803 and 1827, ^^^ "the 
history of Western education may be said to 
begin with Mountstuart Elphinstone (1819-1827), 
in whose Governorship the first schools were 
opened. 

The same factors which we found to be present 
elsewhere, working in favour of female education 
or against it, are felt in the Bombay Presidency. 
In some places, especially in the country districts, 



Bombay 163 

there is strong opposition to the establishment of 
any kind of schools at all, and most of all to girls' 
schools. To the zemindar or villager the estab- 
lishment of a school merely means that educational 
and revenue officers will come round worrying 
him to support it. The children are wanted for 
work in the fields, and where the margin of sub- 
sistence is so small it is no wonder that every 
mite of labour is needed. In sixty villages out 
of every hundred there is no school at all. The 
women are conservative ; they have not been 
educated themselves : why should their daughters 
be educated ? Above all it is not dustur 
(custom), and with that the would-be recruiting 
agency strikes against a solid argument which it 
will take decades to remove. But to set against 
this, there is the fact that, speaking broadly, it is 
not a parda country. Except for the Moslems, 
who are in considerable minority, and a small 
proportion of the Hindus influenced by tradition 
and contact with Mohammedanism, especially in 
the district of Sind, the women of both high and 
low caste have a certain degree of freedom, and 
their general position is greatly influenced by the 
presence of the Parsi ladies, who mingle in society 
very much as do their sisters of the West. To see 
an Indian lady walking on the streets of Bombay 
is no strange sight, as it still is in Calcutta, in 
spite of the half-shy efforts of Christian and 
Brahma Samaj women. The indigenous Indian 
feeling in favour of education is stronger than 
in the district round Calcutta, and there is more of 



164 Education of Women of India 

the orthodox element in it. Poona, the centre 
of the Deccan Brahmans and of cultured 
Hinduism, stands for a certain well-defined 
attitude towards education in which women 
share. The Prabhu Brahmans especially are 
noted for the many cultured women in their 
ranks ; they do not marry young, and as a rule 
afford almost equal opportunity to boys and girls. 
The Prarthana Samaj,^ an unorthodox meeting- 
ground for the " multitudes in the valley of 
decision," throws its emphasis on women's 
education, and the general impression given is 
that, while all educated India has talked about 
this crucial problem, here much honest effort has 
been made to solve it. It is a very pure form of 
patriotism which leads a Hindu student to give 
up two hours daily of his college time to voluntary 
teaching in a girls' High school, yet this is by no 
means rare in Bombay. The Parsi element and 
influence has also been a very potent one. The 
leading Parsi men in the early days spared neither 
money nor personal trouble, with the result that 
to-day out of 1465 girls receiving higher education, 
1054 are drawn from the Parsi community, and 
their contribution to the supply of teachers is a 
very important one. 

But this leads us to a detailed study of the early 
history of the movement, and its present condi- 
tions in relation to the different communities. 

^ A society similar to the Brahma Samaj, but less 
organized and not so strong numerically. Cf. New Ideas 
in India. Morrison. 



Bombay 1 6^ 

Owing to the influences described, it is not sur- 
prising that, at the last Quinquennial Survey, 
Bombay stood second only to Burma in its per- 
centage of girls at school, and a glance at the 
gradually increasing number shows the steady 
upward progress. 

1 88 1 — 1.2 per cent, of girls of school age at school. 

1896—3.75 

1901— 4.74 

1907—5.9 

1910 — 7.2 „ „ ,, „ 

In earlier days it is impossible to get separate 
figures. Where girls shared in education it was 
incidentally in the boys' schools, or separately in 
mission schools, and they owed nothing to any 
special effort on their behalf ; even to day 21 % 
of the girls at school are studying in boys' schools. 
The initial impulse came from Mrs Margaret 
Wilson and other workers of the Scottish Mission, 
who from 1824 onwards gradually gathered 
together a few girls for instruction. The first 
step taken by Indians was due to the Students' 
Literary and Scientific Society connected with 
the Elphinstone College in Bombay, when five 
leading Indian members volunteered in 1849 to 
open schools for girls in their own houses. One 
of these was Mr Dadabhai Nauraji, India's 
" Grand Old Man," who may be regarded as the 
pioneer of women's education in the Presidency, 
if not in all India, and who still, in his eighty- 
sixth year, advocates their cause by his pen. A 
description of the celebrations in honour of his 



1 66 Education of Women of India 

birthday organized recently by the " Gujerati 
Stri Mandal," a women's society founded in 1909 
to further the educational and social progress of 
women, may give some idea of the distance which 
has been traversed since these early days. Some 
thousand women in their graceful Indian dresses, 
diaphanous draperies and brilliant jewels, gathered 
together in a hall which they themselves had 
garlanded and cross-garlanded with sweet-scented 
wreaths in his honour, while on the platform the 
Rani of Gondal presided, surrounded by all the 
leading Indian women in Bombay who were 
interested, either as organizers or teachers, in 
women's education. A short, terse speech was 
made by Miss Cursetji, whose main interest and 
energy for the last twenty-five years have been 
devoted to the Alexandra Girls' High School, 
founded by her father in 1863 ; another by the 
Hindu Head-mistress of the High School under 
the auspices of the Scientific and Literary Society ; 
another by a young Parsi B.A., Head mistress of 
the first Hindu Girls' High School ; another, 
in the general interests of education, by a 
Saraswat Brahman lady, whose husband is Prime 
Minister in an adjacent Native State — and the 
one European member of the audience realized 
that India has initiative and purpose of her own, 
and women of whom she may well be proud. 
The progress in the different communities and the 
share which is borne by the Government and 
private efforts respectively can best be seen by 
the accompanying tables. Private effort divides 



Bombay 167 

itself naturally, as elsewhere, into the work of 
Christian missions and of the Indian community, 
but a further sub-division is necessary in the latter 
in consequence of the special position of the Parsis. 
Of the Hindu effort first : — the Scientific and 
Literary Society, after its initial private efforts, 
proceeded with a definite educational policy in 
the founding of schools, and, though at present 
only one school in Bombay is directly under its 
auspices, its influence in combating prejudice is 
considerable. This school is exceedingly popular, 
as the girls are passed quickly into the higher 
stages, thus earning a certain matrimonial pres- 
tige, though it is unfortunately true that a girl 
from the Matriculation class on transference to 
a mission school had to be placed three classes 
lower to find her proper level. In consequence of 
the amateur staff of voluntary teachers who 
supply the upper forms, this school does not rank 
as one of the eleven High schools. This feature 
is interesting, as it shows the earnestness of 
purpose in the members of the Society, but from 
an educational point of view the system does not 
seem very effective. As a whole the school 
presents no specially Indian features, except that 
French is excluded and Sanskrit is compulsory as a 
Matriculation subject. Religion is taught by a 
special teacher, and there are daily prayers. One 
Hindu school in Poona ranks as a genuine High 
school, and one other in Bombay hopes shortly 
to be classed as such. This Chanda-Ramji School 
owes its foundation to a legacy left for the build- 



1 68 Education of Women of India 



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170 Education of Women of India 

ing of a huge gilded idol. The idol was indeed 
built, but the times have advanced, and only 
some 10% of the funds were thus utilized. The 
school is excellently staffed with fourteen 
mistresses, four of whom are graduates, and with 
additional pandits for Sanskrit and mathematics 
for some two hundred girls ; there is a splendid 
hall for drill and games, a well-stocked science 
museum, and practically every modern apparatus. 
Religion is taught from a book of Hindu Moral 
Maxims by a special teacher. The Gujerati Stri 
Mandal, mentioned above, has its own functions 
in endeavouring to secure the attendance at its 
afternoon classes of young married girls and 
others from the parda-keeping sections. Educa- 
tionally, their influence is probably important 
rather in the direction of making the next genera- 
tion accessible to proper education than in much 
actual attainment on the part of the present 
pupils. They also organize regular lectures on 
such subjects as " The Aim of Life," " The Ad- 
vantages of a Spiritual Temperament," and " The 
Duties of Motherhood," from which may be seen 
the close connexion in the mind of the Indian 
woman between religion and education. The 
Prarthana Samaj, though they have a weekly 
women's meeting for the discussion of ethical 
subjects, and a " Sunday School," do not organize 
any separate secular education, and their girls are 
to be found wherever the best education seems 
obtainable. In Hyderabad there are five large 
girls' Primary schools, managed by the Hindu 



Bombay 171 

Reform Association, which the Government 
Report notes as doing useful work. It will thus 
be seen that the actual Hindu contribution to 
organized education is not an extensive one, 
nor has it, as in Bengal, any special character- 
istic ; but it should be borne in mind that the 
Hindus take good advantage of the mission and 
Government schools, and are even found in some 
of the Parsi High schools. Though their per- 
centage of girls in the High school stage is small 
in comparison with their overwhelming majority 
in the community, it is probably true that every 
orthodox girl venturing to continue her school 
career beyond the Primary classes, does so in 
spite of the opposition, if not of her own immediate 
family, at least of her grandmother and cousins. 

The Mohammedan factor is numerically a small 
one ; the girls belonging to families of the better class 
are educated at home or in one of the mission " Eng- 
lish teaching " ^ schools, and it is interesting to 
note one Mohammedan lady of good social position 
guiding a school for poor Moslem girls in her own 
house. Two Mohammedan schools are also on 
the Government list of Primary schools, but the 
pupils are mostly in the lower Primary stage. 

The Parsi contribution is, as has already been 
indicated, a very considerable one, and in its 
extent, thoroughness, and modern character, it is 

'^ " English-teaching" schools form a special category 
in the Bombay Presidency. There is no limitation to 
the number of Indian pupils, and they are not bound 
by the Anglo-Vernacular Code. Cf. p. 179. 



172 Education of Women of India 

quite what one might have expected of the 
" French of the East." A few notes on their 
general position are needed to show their attitude 
towards education. The Parsis are one of the 
most adaptable races of the world, and in Bombay, 
where 46,000 of them reside, they have been the 
leaders in women's education. Lady Frere speaks 
of a time in her remembrance when not a single 
Parsi lady could speak English, whereas to-day it 
is almost as much a com.mon tongue among the 
wealthy families as Gujerati, which they adopted on 
their original immigration to India. In 1842 Lady 
Arthur opened Government House for the first time 
to Indian ladies, and the Parsis were naturally the 
first to respond. To-day all the larger social func- 
tions in Bombay are attended by Indian ladies, the 
large majority of whom are Parsi.^ They are to be 
seen daily at the Princess Mary Gymkhana, a ladies' 
club, playing Badminton and croquet, and discuss- 
ing matters of interest with their friends, some wear- 
ing the orthodox sari and sacred shirt symbolic of 
their ancient faith, others in modern European 
dress. Socially they have been much affected by 
the hedonism of the West. Religiously their 
evolution has been rather negative than positive. 
Zoroastrianism as a cult had survived only in curi- 
ous forms and ceremonies, and the sacred language 
of its books was unknown even to the priests ; the 
educated Parsi inclined to agnosticism or theosophy 
while retaining his ceremonial adherence to a religion 

* Hindu ladies attended first about 1863 in response to 
special efforts made on their behalf by Lady Frere. 



Bombay I -73 

which was the binding tie of his community. 
Under the influence of the modem Renaissance 
and general revival of the ethnic faiths, the sacred 
books have been translated ; brief extracts 
published in dainty vellum volumes, together with 
the Lord's Prayer and Christian hymns (with 
significant omissions), are used as manuals of 
devotion. When the Parsi girls' schools were 
first started no religious instruction was given, 
but now a special Zoroastrian committee exists 
for preparing literature and sending an instructor 
to each. Quick to perceive the general bearing 
of British rule and modern education on their 
position as a wealthy minority in an alien land, 
the Parsi leaders adopted, in 1857, a definite 
educational policy for their women. They sepa- 
rated from the Scientific and Literary Society and 
formed one of their own, the Parsi School Associa- 
tion, to which they gave most liberally both in 
money and personal service. Other leading Parsis 
founded special schools, and it is difficult when 
looking down the Government list to know which 
to select for description. Two perhaps may be 
taken as typical, one of the three Association 
schools and the Alexandra Native Girls' High 
School. The former owes its special character- 
istics to the Honorary Secretary of the Associa- 
tion, Khan Bahadur Chichgar, who visited the 
best schools in Europe in order to study the 
Herbartian principles of education in actual 
practice. He was the first to introduce 'this 
method in the Bombay Presidency, and has done 



174 Education of Women of India 

so without imitation of detail, and with the most 
wonderful adaptation to the environment of Parsi 
children. The school is kept continually supplied 
with the latest appliances and the newest books, 
and Mr Chichgar has for many years visited the 
school on Saturday afternoons to train the teachers 
in the use of them. The result is that, though 
the teachers may hold no Normal certificates, 
the school is alert and keen, from the youngest 
baby rejoicing in plaiting its neighbour's hair, to 
the girls of the fifth form, whose curriculum is 
varied by ambulance work, cooking, and dress- 
cutting. On the occasion of the writer's visit 
every child had some practical handwork of its 
own to exhibit ; the action songs were definitely 
related to the subsequent lesson on weights and 
measures, while the mud modelling of the Bombay 
water-system done by one of the higher forms 
showed a thorough sense of neatness and propor- 
tion, with an intelligent knowledge of the principle 
involved. The shadow of an examination never 
falls upon this school ; it aims at providing a 
thorough training for life for middle-class Parsi 
girls, and its success in doing so in entirely due to 
the unsparing devotion and labour given to it by 
its founder — a man engaged in ordinary business. 
The Alexandra Native Girls' High School dates 
from the early days of pioneer work and of un- 
sympathetic criticism. Some 20 pupils were 
registered for its first opening in 1863, and to-day 
there are about 120, practically as many as the 
staff of the institution is meant to deal with. Its 



Bombay 175 

aim is to give Parsi girls of respectable families 
the " blessings of an English education upon 
sound moral principles," and though the blessing 
may be a doubtful one, the school is certainly 
thoroughly English in every way. Since i8go, 
Matriculation candidates have been sent up with 
a good record of success. There is no higher 
teaching of the vernaculars, and French is taken as 
the alternative Matriculation subject. The Head- 
mistress is from England and is fully qualified, 
but the rest of the staff are Parsis, only one of 
whom had Normal qualifications. The school is 
managed by a committee of leading Parsis, and 
though it is under Government inspection it 
receives no grant, as the income from fees and the 
endowment is sufficient. This school may be 
taken as fairly typical of a first-class Parsi High 
school. Moreover, education has advanced so 
far in the community that private enterprise is 
no longer an impossiblity, and can even as in the 
case of the Girton High school, be made financially 
successful without the Government grant. The 
dividing line between business and philanthropy 
may at times be difficult to draw, but the spirit 
is much to be commended which keeps a school 
of this type alive and efficient, when in some 
cases the nett profit to the proprietress is barely 
a living wage. Taken as a whole, the Parsis have 
provided most thoroughly for the education of 
their girls, both rich and poor. Of the eleven 
High schools under private management in the 
Presidency, seven are Parsi ; of the Middle 



1 76 Education of Women of India 

schools four, and of the Primary schools, whether 
separate or forming departments of the High 
schools, fifteen. Of this provision ample advan- 
tage is taken, and the proportion of daily attend- 
ance to the numbers on the roll is amazing in 
comparison with Upper India. 

Wherein, then, does the system fail, or is it 
perfect ? Criticism seems ungracious where so 
much energy and thought have been expended, 
but in the main there are two things which 
strike a visitor — the lack in the teachers of a 
sense of the dignity and responsibility of their 
profession, with the consequent effect of such a 
lack on the outlook of their pupils, and the de- 
orientalizing curriculum. These problems are, 
however, common to the whole educational 
situation, and one could hardly expect even the 
Parsi community to be quite immune. 

It is difficult to turn from the indigenous Indian 
element, which has naturally something in it very 
spectacular and attractive to the Western visitor, 
to the quiet record of the immense and steady 
contribution of Christian missions to education 
in the Bombay Presidency, and to realize that 
the main inspiration of the former came from the 
gradual and unconscious infiltration of the 
Christian ideal of womanhood. For more than 
twenty years the missionaries were the sole 
pioneers in the face of much opposition. The 
pupils were gained at first through the influence 
of Hindu and Parsi gentlemen interested in the 
Scottish mission. Progress was naturally slow, 



Bombay iy^ 

there was a lack of continuity in the British 
workers, and continuity is essential in a country 
where personality counts for so much ; but by 
1827 three hundred girls, some of good caste, 
were attending school in the Konkan district, 
where the Scottish pioneers first started. After 
the transference of the mission Mrs Wilson had 
managed, by 1830, to organize six little schools in 
Bombay with 120 pupils, the story of the winning 
of each individual girl being almost a romance in 
itself. For some time the children were given 
weekly paisa ^ as a reward, and would demand 
their wage like weary labourers, a practice still 
extant in some of the Native States, and a great 
contrast to the sum of 407 rupees now received 
as fees in one of the mission institutions which 
traces its origin to these very schools. The Parsis 
in one street asked the mission to instruct all the 
children therein, including sixteen girls. The 
Beni Israel also proved an accessible community, 
and thus gradually the number of girls increased. 
The second stage of missionary education was 
reached when boarding-schools were created for 
Indian Christian girls who could be retained for a 
reasonable time, and some of whom could be 
utilized as teachers. About 1885 the first syste- 
matic attempt at Normal training is noticed, a 
line of work which is perhaps at present the most 
important missionary contribution to the whole 
scheme, and capable of further development. 
Mission schools, as might be expected, form an 
^ Farthings. 
M 



178 Education of Women of India 

overwhelming majority in the list of aided schools. 
Of the II High schools they have 2, of the 34 
Middle schools 14, and of the 276 Primary schools, 
practically all except those indicated above and 
a few others. Certain societies educate, as yet, 
mainly the children of their own communities ; 
others, such as the American Board for Foreign 
Missions, the United Free Church of Scotland, 
and the Irish Presbyterian Mission, have a con- 
siderable number of schools, both in the cities and 
in the villages, for non-Christian children. The 
Zenana Bible and Medical Mission makes work 
of this kind a special feature.^*' The small pro- 
portion of High schools is partly accounted for 
by the fact that the Victoria High School at 
Poona, founded by Mrs Sorabji, and still carried 
on most effectively by her daughter as a Christian 
school, is classed as a boys' school. It is attended 
by the children of many of the leading Parsi 
families, and is a curious example of successful 
co-education up to an advanced stage. Also 
both in Bombay and Poona there is a consider- 
able number of good European schools in connec- 
tion with Roman Catholic and Episcopal sister- 
hoods, to which 15% of Indian girls may be 
admitted on payment of double fees. These 
places are always eagerly sought. The Girgaum 
High School, under the auspices of the Z.B.M.M., 

10 Detailed information can be obtained in the reports 
of the various societies. There are 26 Protestant 
societies in the Presidency, most of whom have educa- 
tional work for girls. 



Bombay 1 79 

may be taken as typical of a first-class " English- 
teaching " mission High school. About 150 
girls can be seen gathered together at morning 
prayer, two-thirds of whom are non-Christian 
(Parsis, Moslems, Beni Israel, and a few Hindus) ; 
some have come in their motor-cars, others from 
quite poor homes. The curriculum extends from 
three Kindergarten classes to the seventh English 
standard, in which the girls go up for Matriculation. 
English is used as a medium throughout, which 
makes the school popular with Indians who desire 
purely English education, but it is naturally very 
difficult for the pupils in the early stages, in spite of 
the Government regulation that the teacher must 
be able to translate into Marathi. There are four 
English mistresses and several well-qualified Anglo- 
Indians. A new department has recently been 
added for the training of English Kindergarten 
students for the Froebel examination, but this is 
not yet sufficiently staffed to ensure good success. 
Two-thirds of the income are derived from fees 
and one-third from the Government grant. 

The Ambroli School of the United Free Church 
Mission is Hindu throughout, and at present takes 
its pupils only as far as the fifth Anglo-Vernacular 
standard. All the instruction in the lower forms 
is in Marathi, and it is a stiff battle that Marathi 
babies have to fight with their letters. There are 
three scripts to learn — one printed, one cursive, 
and one abbreviated — and it is no wonder that, 
with this task to master, Indian parents tend to 
look on Kindergarten expedients for " time 



i8o Education of Women of India 

wasting " as a diversion from the royal road to 
knowledge. The teachers here, with the exception 
of one Anglo-Indian for English in the upper 
forms, are all Indian, and some are non-Christians, 
but the school is continually visited by a fully 
trained Scottish lady, who divides her time between 
this and another school. Fees are paid regularly, 
and there is a good municipal grant. An interest- 
ing feature of the American Mission is the stress 
laid at their orphanage and boarding-school upon 
independence in character. Each pupil must do 
two hours' industrial work, and may in addition 
work longer for payment, which is credited to her 
account for payment of fees. Thus some of the 
pupils in the Matriculation class were beyond the 
usual age, but had contributed considerably to 
their own maintenance. The industrial training 
of this mission is very highly developed, both in 
Bombay and at Ahmednagar. The Primary 
schools in the villages have the usual character- 
istics which we have studied elsewhere, and it has 
only to be noted that this work is capable of 
practically unlimited extension. 

No account of women's education in the Presi- 
dency would be complete without reference to 
the work of Pandita Ramabai,^! which stands 
outside all mission control, and is the unique 
contribution of an Indian woman to the future 
victory of the Christian ideal among her own 
people. Since the Sharada Sadan (the abode of 
wisdom) near Poona was started in 1892, thou- 
11 Cf. Life of Pandita Ramabai, Helen Dyer. 



Bombay 1 8 1 

sands of Indian widows have been given the 
opportinuty of a self-supporting, self-respecting 
life, and a vision of what self-sacrifice may mean. 
The education given on strictly intellectual 
lines is naturally not carried to a High stage, but 
is thorough in type. The Pandita dreads the 
Westernization of her girls, and stands for all that 
is good in simple Indian life. 

Though mission education bulks so largely in 
the statistics of voluntary schools, and has been the 
pioneer, it must be realized that it does not hold 
the same position in this as in other provinces, 
nor influence the districts as a whole. A brief 
glance at the figures of Primary schools (Table, 
page i68) supported by other public bodies, both 
in British territory and in the Native States, will 
prove the contrary to those who imagine the 
mission factor still to be the dominant one. 

The Government function is here, as in the 
other provinces, largely a co-ordinating and 
directing one as regards the girls' schools. The 
six important Government institutions — two High 
schools with Primary schools attached, at Poona 
and at Ahmedabad, and four Training schools — 
are a direct outcome of the effort to standardize 
and raise the general tone of education in the 
Presidency. They are linked by the system of 
" stipends " to all the Primary schools. The 
institution at Poona under an Indian lady. Miss 
Bhore, is excellently housed, and had at the time 
of my visit 200 girls in the High school, 200 in 
the vernacular practising school, and about 88 



1 82 Education of Women of India 

Normal students. The Inspectress regrets that 
there is not a Government High school in Bombay 
to raise the general standard. Apart from these 
institutions directly under the Central authority, 
a great deal has been done with public funds 
under the Municipalities and Local Boards, 
It has been impossible to ascertain exactly when 
these schools under public authority were first 
started, but the system must have grown up 
somewhere in the " eighties." At first the girls of 
the lower castes went, as they still go in many 
villages, to the boys' schools ; in other places 
separate schools gradually sprang up wherever 
there were enlightened Indian members of the 
Municipalities to welcome the official suggestion. 
In 1 90 1, the number of girls' Primary schools in 
Bombay necessitated the appointment of an 
Indian Inspectress to work under the Munici- 
pality, and shortly afterwards an English 
Inspectress was appointed from home to the 
Indian Educational Service, in order to develop 
women's education in certain portions of the 
Presidency. Her time was largely occupied in 
the inspection and examination of Training 
colleges and High schools (European and Anglo- 
Vernacular) and in dealing with questions of 
general educational policy as " expert adviser " 
to the Department. Since Miss Ashworth's 
retirement, no English Inspectress has been 
appointed in the Indian Educational Service to 
this Presidency. The value of the municipal and 
local board schools, if viewed from the numerical 



Bombay 183 

standpoint of increasing the women literates in 
the district, is unquestioned, but when all allow- 
ance has been made for exceptions, the real gain 
to the community when the schools are not well 
staffed and lack constant supervision is very 
questionable. Miss Corkery, the present In- 
spectress, emphasizes the need for constant 
inspection. " I believe that if the Municipalities 
employed a trained supervisor to visit each school 
daily the work would be carried on more methodi- 
cally. From my twenty-five years' experience of 
the Hindu female teacher I have come to the 
conclusion that she has no power of initiative and 
no administrative capacity. She will work hard 
and faithfully under supervision, but as soon as 
that is withdrawn her natural apathy asserts 
itself." 12 When in addition to her own " natural 
apathy " the teacher has possibly had no Normal 
training herself, and suffers from untrained assis- 
tants, the spirit of the school is apt to flag. 
Adequate inspection of these schools would un- 
doubtedly necessitate the appointment of women 
Deputy-Inspectors. The question of premises is 
also a very vital one. The Indian child is accus- 
tomed to be one of a crowd, to eat and sleep, to 
live and die as one of a crowd ; but, in school, if 
it is to attain to individuality, it must learn the 
value of space. Yet in one of the best Bombay 
municipal schools which takes its brighter pupils 
up to the Anglo- Vernacular sixth Standard, I 
found some 300 girls crowded into the space 
1^ Public Instruction Report, Bombay, 1910, p. 27. 



1 84 Education of Women ot India 

really needed for about half that number. 
Several crowded pens were to be seen round a bit 
of fiat roof, too wet in the rains and too sunny 
at other times for drill, one of the pens so 
crammed with infants that it was almost impos- 
sible to step from one division to another, infants 
in different classes within touch of one another, 
and the whole pervaded with a pungent odour 
from the fruit market below — surely this is not 
for the good of the city or of the children. " In 
Ahmedabad the girls are compelled to sit amid 
insanitary and evil-smelling surroundings, to study 
the advantages of pure air." ^^ It would not be 
difficult to multiply instances. On the other 
hand some municipal schools are well housed and 
staffed, and the system must not be condemned 
when it is capable of improvement. The problem 
is partly a financial one, and partly once more the 
question of the supply of teachers and of the future 
Inspectresses. These children pay a few paisa, in 
fair proportion to the income of their parents, where- 
as in many High schools receiving a Government 
grant the fees might with advantage be raised. 1* 

When the situation in the Presidency is viewed 
as a whole the present need is seen to be not so 
much to secure more girls by artificial means or 
to induce more to stay to the higher stage, for 
there is a steady current in favour of education 
which is slowly acquiring momentum, but rather 
to raise the standard of teaching as a whole and 

13 Public Instruction Report, Bombay, p. 27. 
1* Ibid., p. 18. 



Bombay 1 85 

so to adapt the curriculum that those children 
who do pass through the schools will, in intel- 
lectual attainment and character, commend the 
system and prove a force attractive to others. 

The problem of the teacher is one that is 
apparent throughout, alike in Indian, mission, and 
public authority schools. Taking the Primary 
teacher first, from what ranks is she usually drawn, 
and what are the attractions to the profession ? In 
consequence of the shortness of supply the school- 
mistress is very often found to be, in fact, an 
elderly man. This, however, is becoming less 
frequent. A glance at the table on page 168 shows 
that the majority of students in training are 
lower-caste Hindus, and that native Christians 
form about a fourth of the whole. Of the 1200 
women actually engaged now in the teaching 
profession, I have been unable to obtain a religious 
classification, but presumably the proportion 
holds good. In the Ahmedabad Training College 
15 of the students are wives or daughters of 
masters, 19 are wives of students, 15 are wives of 
other men, 42 are unmarried, and 36 are widows. 
Taking this college as typical, and assuming the 
certainty of marriage on the part of the spinsters, 
it means that in many cases teachers will be 
available in couples for the village schools. Those 
whose husbands are not teachers are often difficult 
to locate, and in many cases may drop out of the 
work. It is questionable whether the employ- 
ment of married women in the schools is advis- 
able : on the one hand, it seems at present the 



1 86 Education of Women of India 

only method to secure the necessary female 
teachers ; on the other hand, the British Govern- 
ment is facing even at home the complications 
which the element of married women's work 
introduces mto the labour market. True, Indian 
life is different, for the babies come with their 
mothers to school, and a kind Government supplies 
the necessary cradles and ayah, but there are 
undoubted hardships. " The life of the \illage 
schoolmistress has not many compensations ; in 
addition to the long hom-s at school she has 
arduous home duties to perfonn. In man}' cases 
she is the sole breadwinner for five or six, none of 
whom consider it incumbent on them to help her 
\\"ith the household work. Rising at five in the 
morning or earlier, she has to begin her daily time- 
table, which extends over seventeen hours. It is 
marvellous that she is able to work as cheerfuUy 
as she does." ^^ The permanent hope is in the 
widow, and it is encouraging to see a better pro- 
portion of them here. The spinster is at best 
available in mission schools for a short period tiU 
her mamage. ]\Iany trained Christian girls teach 
for several years, often li\'ing under the super- 
intendence of the missionary, and make most 
efficient teachers. The supph- of such, however, 
is in no way equal to the demand. It is difficult 
for one not fuUy acquainted with the Indian 
standard of life to judge of the financial aspect, 
but the impression gathered from the Govern- 
ment Reports is that increased salaries might 
*^ Public Instructioti Report, Bombay, p. 29. 



Bombay 187 

attract a better class. There is a proverb that 
when begging fails it is well to learn to be a 
teacher. The salaries paid by mission agencies 
are, as a rule, slightly less than those paid by 
municipal authorities, just as the salaries of 
educational missionaries are less than the cor- 
responding salaries at home. As regards training, 
a great effort is being made on all sides to secure 
that all the teachers either take a preliminary 
course or go up for the qualifying examination : 
at present the proportion is 44%. Any girl in a 
municipal school who shows any ability or desire 
can pass free of charge as a " stipendiary "to the 
Government Training Colleges with the stipulation 
that she shall teach thereafter with a salary for at 
least two years. Five mission schools have Normal 
divisions attached in which much the same condi- 
tions prevail. The city of Bombay has, however, 
no proper provision of opportunity. None of the 
Government Training Colleges are situated there, 
and, apart from Mr Chichgar's work, which is limited 
to the Parsi School Association, there is only a Satur- 
day morning training class under the auspices of a 
United Missionary Committee, which is not largely 
attended. Poona, on the other hand, has two if not 
three Training institutions, and the circumstances 
seem to point towards redistribution. A Hindu girl 
is much more likely to continue her education if it 
does not entail leaving her relatives. Miss Wilson, 
Head mistress of the Girgaum High School, in a 
paper recently read at the Bombay Missionary 
Conference, emphasized the need of more funds to 



1 88 Education of Women of India 

aid existing institutions, and of fixing a definite 
rate of salaries and a date after which none but 
trained teachers would be allowed in any school 
receiving a Government grant. The latter sugges- 
tion is possibly somewhat premature, as it might 
mean the closing of many schools or letting them 
lapse into the worse state of " unrecognized " 
institutions. The training of the Secondary 
teacher is a different problem. The impression 
current in Great Britain a decade ago that only 
people who knew nothing, or who could not teach, 
went to training colleges, seems still to prevail ; 
moreover, there is no college where women teachers 
can receive a thorough Secondary training. The 
Inspectress' reply to an official inquiry as to the 
possibility of raising the general standard indicates 
the need of a central Government Training College 
with a graded system in the aided schools, and 
special salary grants to all Secondary schools 
staffed by trained teachers. ^^ There does not, 
however, seem any prospect of direct action, either 
on the part of Government or of missionary 
societies. There are few vacancies in the 
Government Normal College, and though one 
woman, a Goanese student, has recently been 
studying there, the course is not adapted to 
women students. A few of the teachers go up 
for the Secondary Examination without a quali- 
fying course or after attendance at a series of 
lectures given at the convent in Bombay. There 
is also a great lack of enthusiasm for the profession 
'" Public Instruction Report, Bombay, p. i6. 



Bombay 189 

as such ; teaching is felt to bemore or less a trade 
finishing at certain definite hours and limited in its 
influence to these. A most attractive set of lectures 
on various educational problems arranged by the 
Principal of the Government Normal College, had 
an average attendance of some seven out of possible 
hundreds. In the case of the women this is perhaps 
largely due to the enervating influence of the 
climate and the consequent lassitude after a long 
day's work, but there is undoubtedly a lack of some 
unifying and inspiring influence which would have 
a strong reflex effect on the tone of the schools. 

The variation of the curriculum has to a 
certain extent been solved in this Presidency as 
regards the Primary stage. Bombay was the 
first province to issue a different set of readers 
for girls, and those now in use, comprising the 
study of heroes and heroines from a moral point 
of view, simple natural phenomena, domestic 
economy, etc., seem admirably adapted to them. 
The Code prescribes the usual elements with a 
study of forms, colours, familiar objects, drill, 
games, native accounts, and geography beginning 
in the third form, and Indian history in the 
fourth. The difficulty begins after the fourth 
Vernacular stage, corresponding to the first 
Anglo- Vernacular. After that stage the shadow 
of the Matriculation begins to fall, and so heavily 
that in the departmental schedule of studies, the 
highest Standard (VII. A.-V.) is left blank. 
Formerly this august portal could be passed very 
quickly by a well-crammed child. I met one 



190 Education of Women of India 

Parsi girl who entered the University at the age 
of thirteen. The age was raised by the Univer- 
sities Commission to sixteen. A great contro- 
versy has recently raged round the place of the 
vernaculars in the University, and the question 
of the use of English as a medium of instruction 
in the school. In regard to the latter, the real 
educators argued the impossibility of the proper 
comprehension of a difficult subject through a 
foreign medium, and the tendency to parrot-like 
repetition of formula or fact, while the actively 
" Indian " party, failing to see the real point at 
issue, held that any other method would weaken 
the standard of English and handicap the Indian 
in public service. The Department have 
sanctioned the use of the vernacular till a later 
stage, but though some teachers spoke warmly 
in favour of this method, it has not yet gone 
beyond experiment. Certainly the teaching of 
history throughout the Matriculation forms seems 
exceedingly weak. The Code for the Anglo- 
Vernacular Standards in relation to the Matricula- 
tion, and the possible substitution for it of the 
School Final Examination, a more practical test, 
is, however, under Government consideration and 
the defects of the present Code need not be 
enlarged upon. The variation of the Code for 
girls is a further question, and the planning of a 
suitable curriculum is a matter which eminently 
lends itself to private enterprize. The de- 
orientalizing influence with Parsi girls is not so 
dangerous as with other Indian girls, but there is 



Bombay 191 

surely something wrong when " once a certificate, 
no more books " is a not infrequent cry. Some 
schools already vary their curriculum for girls : 
one mission report speaks of an alternative course 
better calculated to fit the girls for home life, 
leaving advanced mathematics, etc., to such only 
as have the necessary mental ability and physical 
strength. This effort has met with the approval 
of the Inspectress and of the more thoughtful 
parents. Matriculation has, however, in certain 
circles a distinct matrimonial value, and it is 
pathetic to see older girls, struggling at a distance 
of two forms from the desired goal, who would 
bitterly resent a change to a curriculum more 
suited to their diverse but not inferior powers. 

It is here that the opportunity lies for English 
educators who can help Indian women through 
an exceedingly difficult transitional period to 
realize the meaning of modern culture, which, 
while possessing universal elements, must be 
evolved by every nation on the lines of its own 
genius and characteristics. In Bombay and in 
Poona there are Indian women who think deeply 
on these things, and who await as yet some con- 
structive policy in the success of which, though 
the energy and initiative must be of the West, 
their share would not be lacking. If this con- 
structive policy is to start from the Christian 
standpoint, if the Spirit of Christ is to dominate the 
new culture, the women of Anglo-Saxon countries 
must let their religion dominate them as never 
before, and win them out to the larger service. 



IX 

UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 

" Travellers all in the land of the living, 
In quest of the self it is best to be ; 
Comrades all in the getting and giving, 
Prythee, tell us, what else are we ? 

Girls who go hopefully forth to the morrow. 
In quest of the Women they wish to be, 
Friends who look down on the fair, flying present. 
Wistfully, lovingly — this are we." 

From the "Lai Bagh" Chronicle. 

A FIRM and steady step on the lower rungs 
of the ladder is a fair promise of the 
ultimate ascent, and after a time in- 
credibly short since the first beginnings of 
Western education for women in India, the 
girl graduate is found issuing from the portals 
of the University. 

Pioneer in many senses, with a world of ideal- 
istic possibilities surrounding her career, the 
Indian woman has proved the quality of her 
mental capacity ; she has successfully stood the 
most strenuous of tests, and is prepared to take 
her part as a leader of her sex and as a contri- 
butor to the Feminist Movement. The member 
of Congress sees in her a political factor ; the 

192 



University Education 193 

papers which, advocate social reform hail her as 
a new force which will influence circles far beyond 
the reach of their propaganda ; the educator trusts 
that here at last is someone with the brain power 
and insight to indicate the true lines for the 
education of Indian women ; the missionary 
ponders on her possibilities for the Indian Church 
and the Indian home — ^while India, the real 
India, the silent multitude of India's women, 
knows little and cares less. This strange 
phenomenon seems no longer of their number ; 
she has stepped away with her new and dazzling 
robes from the old tradition, from the memories 
of the twilight and its tales to a new and untried 
world. And yet in a true sense she is still one 
with them, one with them in instinct, in thought, 
in hereditary traits, and fitted, as no Western 
could ever be, to act as the mediator betwixt the 
old and the new. The possibilities of the Indian 
woman graduate have to a certain extent been 
proved in subsequent careers ; on the other 
hand, the results of the whole system, as regards 
the average student, have not entirely justified 
the hopes built upon it. A brief examination of 
the actual facts and conditions will prove the 
best introduction to the problems which underlie 
them. 

The five Universities of India — Calcutta, Madras, 
Bombay, Allahabad, and Lahore — the constitu- 
tions of which resemble that of the University of 
London, are open to any woman who can pass the 
qualifjdng entrance examination. Their subse- 

N 193 



194 Education of Women of India 

quent studies must be conducted in a college duly 
recognized by Government and in affiliation with 
a University. These colleges vary as first and 
second grade according to the stage, Intermediate 
or Final B.A., to which they are able to take their 
students. Of the 175 colleges scattered over 
India 10 are specially women's colleges, but 
women are also found studying in mixed colleges 
under mission boards or Government. Of 
Government institutions it may practically be 
said that no sex barrier exists, except where a 
separate provision is made, as in the case of the 
Bethune College, Calcutta, and the same is true 
to a less extent of the mission institutions. Thus 
women students are found in the Elphinstone 
College, Bombay, in the Presidency College, 
Madras, and in the Government College, Rangoon, 
studying side by side with men under the same 
conditions. The Wilson College, Bombay, is an 
important example of the mixed mission college. 
The ten women's colleges in affiliation with one 
or other University 1 are as follows : — 

Number 

of 
Students.2 

The Bethune College, Calcutta (first grade) . 40 
The Diocesan College, Calcutta (first grade) . 32 
The Isabella Thoburn College, Lucknow 

(first grade) (A.M.M.) . . . .20 

The Sarah Tucker College, Palamcottah 

(second grade) (C.M.S.) ... 6 

The Maharani's College, Mysore 

^ There are in addition three Training Colleges, 
2 Approximate number only. 



University Education 195 



Number 

of 
Students. 



The Maharajah's College, Trevandrum 
St Bede's Convent College, Simla (first grade) 
Auckland House School, Simla (second grade) 
European Girls' High School, Allahabad 

(second grade) ..... 
Woodstock Girls' School, Landour (second 

grade) ...... 

Of these, the last four are mainly for Eurasian 
girls, and fall outside the scope of our inquiry. 
With the exception of the Bethune and the two 
institutions in Native States, they are all under 
Christian management. The word " college " is 
highly misleading. The English reader pictures 
an institution parallel to Girton or Somerville, 
with a full staff of women tutors, supplemented 
by University lectures, whereas these colleges 
consist in most cases of small groups of girls, 
sometimes only one or two, who remain after 
Matriculation in their old school, studying for 
the most part under the same mistresses, and with 
little or no sense of any transition in their career. 
If no girls are fitted to proceed to the higher 
stages, the college as such may lapse for the time 
being ; thus only students in training as teachers 
are returned in the Panjab report for 1910, in 
spite of the two " colleges at Simla," whereas 
the Diocesan School appears ofhcially for the 
first time in the Bengal report as a college with a 
most creditable number of students and an 
efficient staff. The one outstanding exception is 
the Isabella Thoburn College, where the college 



196 Education of Women of India 



department is rigidly separated from the school, 
and where the collegiate atmosphere and sense of 
corporate life are dominant. A similar arrange- 
ment is being made in the new buildings of the 
Bethune College. Even in these two cases there 
is the linked High School under the same 
Principal, sharing in the interest of the staff. A 
women's college in the English sense of the word 
does not exist. 

Passing to the students, the differences of creed, 
as indicated in the Quinquennial Returns of 1907, 
are seen in the annexed table. (See page 197.) 

This proportion is on the whole maintained 
to-day, with the addition of a few Buddhist girls 
studying in Rangoon, and an increased propor- 
tion of Parsis in Bombay. The actual numbers 
show a remarkably small fluctuation within the 
last decade, and have not justified the hopes of 
those who expected a continuation of the four- 
fold increase of the preceding decade. In 1891 
there were 45, in'1901, 177 Arts students. Taking 
some figures from local returns, we find the 
following : — ^ 



Arts Students. 


1901. 


1906. 


1910. 


Bengal .... 


55 


24 


47 


United Provinces . 


49 


38 


45 


Burma .... 


8 


2 


12 


Bombay 


30 


57 


76 


Madras .... 


? 


? 


37 



Cf. also Statistical Abstract, British India, Table 105. 



University Education 



197 



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198 Education of Women of India 

A marked increase is shown only in the Bombay 
Presidency due to the influence of the Parsis. 
The students are drawn from varying ranks of 
society. Of the Hindu students about a quarter 
are Brahmans. Some are drawn from the new 
professional classes, who highly value education 
for their women, and can afford to pay for it ; 
others from the poorer members of the Brahma 
Samaj , who see in college education a prospect of 
a career for their daughters more in accordance 
with their enlightened ideas. Of the system of 
stipends it is difficult to form a judgment. 
Whereas in Britain a scholarship indicates 
special ability tested by competition, in India a 
Government or private stipend is in most cases 
available, at any rate in Bengal, for any girl who 
can pass the required average test. With luck 
she may possibly also secure another stipend to 
cover her board. The " average " girl is there- 
fore apt to predominate far more largely than 
in the early stages of college education in 
Britain or America. There is also a lack of the 
element of hereditary culture, which has a very 
definite contribution to make in Indian life, and 
which may be the inheritance of the daughter as 
well as of the son. But where it is impossible to 
secure a genuinely competitive system and the 
only alternative is the closing of the college career 
to the really brilliant girl of the poorer classes, the 
question is a difficult one. In Calcutta, practi- 
cally all the Bethune students belong to the 
Brahma Samaj ; in Bombay, where the line of 



University Education 199 

separation between the Prarthana Samaj and 
orthodoxy is very indefinite, and parda almost 
non-existent, orthodox Hindu students are to be 
found. It must be remembered, however, that 
these are essentially pioneers, and that the custom 
of early marriage or secluded widowhood still 
practically prevents any marked Hindu element 
amongst women students. In 1903 two Brahman 
ladies passed the Madras B.A. from the Maharani's 
College, Mysore, being the first of their caste 
there to do this. 

The Parsi woman student needs no comment. 
Independent, bright, and alert, she holds her 
own in the mixed colleges of Bombay with the 
utmost equanimity, and has an unparalleled zest 
for examinations. In 1886, the first women 
students entered Wilson College, Ratanbai 
Ardeshir Vakil and her sister Meherbai, daughters 
of a leading Parsi solicitor. Several years before, 
the University had given women the right to go 
up for examination, but only one had made use 
of the permission. Ratanbai specialized in 
French, and was elected a Fellow in 1890. From 
then, till her early death in 1895, she taught 
French in the college, and warm testimony to 
her influence in the college and at home is borne 
by the Principal. " One could see how the 
education and culture of women, instead of 
creating a cleft in the life of the family, as is so 
often erroneously imagined by those who oppose 
the cause of female education in India, proves a 
means of strengthening its unity and elevating 



200 Education of Women of India 

its whole character." * Her sister, Meherbai 
Vakil, is a much-respected medical woman in 
Bombay, and is typical of a growing number of 
Parsi students who have entered professional life 
with great credit. The brilliant career of Miss 
Cornelia Sorabji, a Christian Parsi, who holds the 
post of Legal Adviser to the Bengal Government 
for women in parda, is too well known to need 
emphasis. Two of her sisters are Head-mistresses 
of important Indian schools. 

The Indian Christian woman student figures 
largely in the returns, and the pioneers of the 
movement were drawn from their ranks. This is 
the natural result of the educational policy 
pursued by the various missionary societies, and 
of the later age of marriage among Christians, 
Some of them are mentally very well fitted for 
their studies ; there are others again who are 
largely subsidized by public or private funds, and 
possess ability to pass the average standard, but 
not sufficient mental power to gain full benefit from 
their training. Here, for instance, are two girls, 
daughters of an Indian clergyman, both passing 
well, and taking employment, one as a Mistress 
in a Government school, the other as an Inspectress 
in the Provincial Service ; contrast with them a 
trembling, shrinking girl from a Native State 
who has received a scholarship from her State 
because she has matriculated and because she is 
one of an impoverished family of twelve, a par- 

* Dr Mackichan, in Preface to Ratanbai's Translation 
of Les Parsis. 



University Education 201 

ticularly urgent case ! Throughout her career 
the fear of failure and poverty intensifies the 
strain already possibly too great for a delicate 
constitution, and a girl who might have made 
an excellent Primary teacher is sacrificed on the 
altar of so-called higher education. And yet, as 
has already been indicated, the system affords the 
needed opportunity for the clever girl, and 
possesses this justification. The Christian 
students are mostly to be found in the Isabella 
Thoburn College, in Madras, and a few in Calcutta, 
chiefly at the Diocesan School and College, Since 
the latter was founded, about fifteen years ago, 
five B.A.'s have passed out and several F.A.'s.^ 
New college buildings have recently been added 
with boarding accommodation for forty-five 
resident students. It is managed by the Com- 
munity of St John Baptist, known generally as 
the Clewer Sisterhood. Miss Chunder Mukki 
Bose, M.A.,^ to whose guidance the Bethune 
College has owed much of its prestige, and the 
late Lilavati Singh, M.A., Vice-Principal of the 
Isabella Thoburn College, stand out as the most 
prominent Indian Christian graduates, while the 
dramatic episode of Mrs Nvimabala Shome's 
graduation as B.A. at the same time as her 
husband in Calcutta, gave an object-lesson in 

^ F.A. — title given to those who have passed the 
First Arts exaraination, corresponding to " Inter- 
mediate." It is abohshed by some of the Universities, 
Cf. p, 116. 

" Now married to Pandit Keshavan. 



202 Education of Women of India 

matrimonial equality. She subsequently took 
her M.A. in England, and devoted much of her 
life to the organization of one of the mission 
High schools in Calcutta. Indian Christian 
graduates are to be found all over India under- 
taking responsible work with great credit. 

The Mohammedan girl graduates cannot be 
discussed as a class, for even if we go back to the 
" glory of women," the Sheikha Shuhda of the 
Middle Ages, who lectured at Bagdad on literature 
and rhetoric, they are only found here and there 
as isolated figures. One Mohammedan girl of a 
well-known Bombay family passed first among 
girl candidates in the Bombay Presidency in 
1910, and is now studying at Wilson College. 

It will thus be seen that the women students 
of India are a very heterogeneous body, repre- 
senting almost every shade of religious opinion, 
and varying possibly in their mental capacity to 
a greater extent than the women of other lands. 

The question of the curriculum and of the 
nature of the studies required for the degree 
examinations has a very definite relation to the 
numerical problem stated above. Are these of a 
nature to attract increasing numbers ? Are they 
sufficiently in accord with the Indian ideal of 
womanhood or with the aspirations of the 
reformers ? The facts are worth analysis. From 
the first, the courses for men and women have 
been identical ; no temporary expedient of a 
women's examination such as the Cambridge 
Higher Local, and the St Andrews L.L.A., has 



University Education 203 

been adopted by any of the Indian Universities ; 
women must cover the same ground as men or 
none at all. The various courses in Bombay are in- 
dicated in the accompanying diagram. The range 
of subjects is somewhat similar to that of the 
University of London ; for the B.A. examination, 
the average candidate presents himself in Eng- 
lish, Philosophy, or History, and one Classical or 
Modern language. There is a corresponding 
scientific course, English remaining compulsory 
throughout. The Intermediate examination 
covers a wider range of subjects. The details 
differ in different Universities, but the standard 
on the whole is similar. Calcutta alone requires 
a compulsory essay in the vernacular for the B.A., 
and the emphasis laid on Sanskrit and Arabic is 
not the same as that laid on Latin and Greek in 
the Western Universities. The Panjab University 
has a separate Oriental Course, for which as yet 
no woman has entered. The M.A. is given on 
the results of further examination, and, in some 
Universities, after a fresh course of study. The 
proportion of students who go through the whole 
course is small : for every seventeen who pass the 
Intermediate, only five become Bachelors of Arts, 
and only one a Master.' I have been unable to 
procure separate figures for women, but appa- 
rently the proportion is even less, and there 
are very few women who have obtained the degree 
of M.A. The examination system of the Univer- 
sities has been subjected to severe criticism, both 
^ Administrative Problems of British India. J. Chailley. 



204 Education of Women of India 







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University Education 205 

by enlightened Indians and by Europeans, the 
chief indictments being embodied in Lord Curzon's 
Universities' Commission Report of 1904, and we 
find tentative reforms in the subsequent Act. 
The " yattering " graduate who knows nothing 
and can decide nothing, but who can repeat yard 
after yard from any prescribed text-book, is the 
byword of those who wish to taunt India, 
and there is a germ of truth in the reproach. The 
effort to impart the highest Western culture 
through Indian teachers who have only partially 
assimilated it themselves, must prove to some 
extent unsatisfactory. Since the Public Service 
Commission in 1886, Indians have been admitted 
to the Educational Service in much larger num- 
bers : for example, the Presidency College in 
Calcutta had in 1880 a complete staff of English 
professors and Oriental specialists ; in 1911, only 
eight are English and twenty-three Indian, 
though in the meantime the number of pupils has 
increased from 350 to 700.^ It is possible that 
here real efficiency has been sacrificed from the 
commendable motives of economy and a desire 
to utilize the Indians in their own Universities. 
To command a supply of the best men from home 
would involve a heavy financial strain, and yet, 
unless the Oriental, who can live on a smaller 
salary, has spent some years in Europe, he is 
hardly fitted to guide a University where the 
curriculum largely consists of Western subjects. 
It is interesting to find Mr Gokhale emphasizing 
8 Indian Unrest. V. Chirol. 



2o6 Education of Women of India 

the need of studying in a foreign University as a 
preliminary to professional work in India.^ It is 
the presence of a fully equipped English staff 
(who are there for other reasons than the mere 
acquisition of a " living " wage) which forms the 
attractive force of a Mission college to the 
ambitious young Indian. The whole question is 
an exceedingly difficult one, and has been fully 
discussed recently by both Mr Chailley and Sir 
Valentine Chirol ; it is raised here only in so far 
as it affects the women who study in mixed 
colleges. It should also be noted that there is 
no English lady on the staff of Bethune College, 
the only Government college for women. The 
feminine counterpart of the typical graduate in- 
dicated above is apparently his decided superior, 
for the Indian feminine virtues of modesty and 
reticence come to her aid, and she does not air 
her acquired knowledge. Still her knowledge is 
only acquired, not yet assimilated, and there is a 
lamentable lack of books in her study. The 
library at Bethune College is not utilized to the 
same extent as one in a corresponding English 
institution. Actual personal contact with some 
of the Indian students is a pathetic experience, as 
we are forced to realise how little real grit there is 
behind their text-book knowledge. They have 
gained no broad outlook on life : a tired brain has 
struggled through so many hours a day of lecture 
work and book work, and no energy is left for 
thought ! Climatic and constitutional conditions 
^ Administrative Problems. J. Chailley. 



University Education 207 

account, to a certain extent, for this result ; lack 
of hereditary culture to a still greater degree ; but 
it is fostered largely by the conditions under 
which the girls have studied, and by the failure of 
Anglo-Saxon women to give them of their best. 
Where the women study apart in the additional 
classes of their former High schools they certainly 
receive individual attention, which results in 
creditable passes, and this is possibly the chief 
merit of a system which has little to be said for 
it from other points of view. The complete staff 
of the Isabella Thoburn College, the well-utilized 
library, and the reputation which its graduates 
have won throughout India, are facts which should 
be noted in this connexion. The Diocesan College 
is establishing a similar tradition. 

There is another side to University life than 
the purely intellectual, namely, the human and 
personal. This, with all its varied manifestations 
in the common pursuit of sport or of music, in 
the discussion of social problems and of mental 
difficulties, or still more in the gentle art of doing 
nothing, lends the charm to college days and is 
perhaps the more dominant factor in after life. 
The influence of certain personalities, men or 
women, who can be trusted, who can look at 
life's problems from the same point of view as 
their students, and are able to throw light on 
their difficulties with the ripeness of experience 
and to lead them to a new moral or religious 
outlook, is often in the long run more powerful 
than that of the actual literature studied. If 



2o8 Education of Women of India 

the University or college fails as a school of 
character it has failed of its raison d'etre. Pre- 
cisely on this ground has the strongest indictment 
recently been made against the Indian system. 
" There has been no more deplorable feature in 
the recent political agitation than the active part 
taken in it by Indian schoolboys and students." ^^ 
A University course inevitably shakes the founda- 
tions of their thought, and in many cases has 
resulted in a revolt from all former moral or 
religious standards of conduct without providing 
a new basis for life. Under a stricter regime, with 
liberal grants and every possible encouragement 
of private hostels where religious instruction is 
possible, an effort is being made to combat this 
lack in the training of character. The case of 
women students presents certain parallel features, 
and also difficulties peculiarly its own. 

The larger proportion of women students in 
Bombay in attendance at the mixed classes are 
living in their own homes ; a few from the country 
are in residence at the Students' Hostel of the Mis- 
sionary Settlement for University Women,ii where, 
though the majority are Christian, students of other 
faiths can be received under special arrangements. 
A Jain lady was at one time in residence there. 
This hostel is in close proximity to both the Wilson 
and the Grant Medical Colleges, and supplies a 
real need, but its residents so far have not been 

1" Indian Unrest. Chirol. 

" Cf. Report from Seer. M.S.U.W., 74 Denison House, 
Vauxhall Bridge Road, London. 







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4-1 

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University Education 209 

very numerous. The women students of Bombay 
as a whole have no corporate life of their own ; 
they may attend some of the joint debating 
societies and kindred meetings, but do not as a 
rule take part. Their common rooms offer rather 
a geographical pied-d-terre than a means of social 
unity. As regards athletics, badminton is pur- 
sued in a somewhat spasmodic way in one college, 
and by invitation to the Principal's house in 
another, but the question of exercise in relation 
to non-resident students is always a moot point 
in a tropical climate. Some attempt to develop 
social life is made by the women graduates from 
British or Colonial Universities who are in charge 
of the students' hostel ; they visit the common 
rooms of two of the colleges, and occasionally 
organize debates or kindred functions at the 
hostel, to which the residents may invite other 
students. The writer was present at one such 
debate on the question of educating men and 
women on similar lines, and the opinions expressed 
by some of the Indian girls are embodied in much 
of the foregoing. This influence is also of a 
religious nature, . being in connexion with the 
Students' Branch of the Young Women's Christian 
Association, and indirectly counts for much. It 
is, however, an extraneous one, and therefore many 
of the students, especially in the Government 
colleges, are beyond its reach. With their actual 
lecturers they can have, in the nature of the case, 
little or no personal contact, and the real need 
seems to be the introduction of women on the 



2IO Education of Women of India 

staff of these colleges, together with the tutorial 
system, which has proved itself so useful in mixed 
non-residential universities in Britain. The case 
is very strongly put by Mr Covernton, who was 
till recently Principal of the Elphinstone College. 
"It is becoming a problem how to provide 
accommodation and adequate supervision for 
these girls. It is ridiculous to expect that young 
unmarried graduates, fresh from Oxford and 
Cambridge, can mould the minds and characters 
of Parsi, much less of Brahman girls ; while the 
training of Eurasian girls is still more difficult. 
Moreover, the close association of male and female 
involved in a mixed education is so totally opposed 
to the traditions of the East, as well as so fraught 
with possibilities of evil, that in my opinion the 
system is rather a barrier than an encouragement 
to female education. — A special lecturer and tutor 
of female students should be appointed to the 
Elphinstone College. She should be a British 
graduate, and a member of the Indian Educa- 
tional Service. Her subject should preferably be 
English, because it is very easy to get women well 
qualified to teach that subject. She would take 
complete charge of the girls' studies in that 
subject, and would in addition supervise their 
general reading, their games, and most important 
of all their manners and conduct." ^^ ^s regards 
conduct the general bearing and influence of these 
girls in the mixed colleges has been most credit- 
able in very trying circumstances, but there is 
^2 Public Instruction Report, Bombay, 1910. 



University Education 211 

certainly a need to relax the evident tension of 
the position, which is little in accordance with 
Oriental ideas. 

The condition of the women students in Madras 
who attend the mixed colleges is somewhat similar. 
There is an excellent hostel managed by the 
Students' Branch of the Young Women's Christian 
Association, where students of all faiths can reside, 
and former pupils of the mission schools can still 
remain in connexion with them. I understand that 
the same strain exists here, with the consequent 
lack of energy for any corporate life. An English 
woman graduate writes from Madras of the great 
need in South India of a first-grade women's college. 

In Calcutta conditions are entirely different ; 
there is a good hostel in connexion with the 
Bethune College, and the Christian girls who 
attend it are resident in their former schools. 
There are only a few non-residential students, but 
as the colleges attended by the Arts students are 
very small, the system assimilates to the tutorial, 
and there is ample opportunity for contact between 
student and lecturer. In the Bethune College, 
however, where the majority of teachers are men, 
the conflict with Oriental ideas arises again, and 
one is not surprised, apart from other reasons, 
at the absence of Moslem or orthodox Hindu 
girls. Here again it seems unfortunate that 
there is no corporate life or unity amongst the 
women students as a whole, or even in the Bethune 
hostel itself. In the latter it would depend 
entirely on Indian initiative, and though one 



212 Education of Women of India 

would expect it to assume a different form from 
the customary Saxon one, its entire absence can 
only be accounted for by unfavourable conditions. 

The corporate life of the Isabella Thoburn Col- 
lege has already been emphasized ; a glance at 
the students' Lai Bagh Chronicle is enough to 
convince the reader of its reality, and of its 
characteristically Indian nature. 

The case of the Indian woman medical student 
must be considered apart from the life of the Arts 
colleges. As a rule few women, except an occa- 
sional Parsi, pass from the one to the other, and 
there is little contact. It is unnecessary here 
to emphasize the need for every possible encour- 
agement for Indian women to take up the 
practice of medicine. The sorrows and sufferings 
of Indian women behind the parda, who would 
rather face death than admit a male practitioner, 
are well known. If to some the statements made 
by missionary writers seem exaggerated, they have 
only to turn to the petition presented to the 
Viceroy in 1890 by the medical women practising in 
India to find evidence of the saddest facts. Indian 
medical students are divided broadly into two 
classes, those who study in one of the four Govern- 
ment colleges affiliated to one or other of the chief 
Universities, and those who study in the medical 
schools for a very much lower qualification.^^ 

*2 There are at present in hospital work in India 47 
women medicals of the first grade (including English- 
women), 92 assistant surgeons, and 67 hospital assis- 
tants, practitioners, etc. Cf. Report of the Countess of 
Dufferin's Fund, 191 1. 



University Education 213 

Of the first class again some are genuine 
University students going up for the degrees 
indicated on page 204, while others are content 
merely with the college diploma which qualifies 
for practice in India. The medical schools, of 
which there are twenty-seven in different parts 
of India, are " intended primarily for the instruc- 
tion of candidates for employment in Government 
Service as hospital assistants, but many of their 
pupils also go into private practice." 1* They 
confer the title of sub- assistant-surgeon. A few 
women students are to be found in the former 
class : in 1907 it included thirty-four Indian women 
in all, and there has not been any marked increase 
in recent years. An even smaller number of 
these take the highest qualification. All that has 
been said of the strained life of the women Arts 
students applies even more strongly to the 
medicals. It is a very hard and difficult life, and 
there is little in the environment to lessen the 
burden. The statistics of the medical schools on 
the other hand show a larger figure, 138 in 1907, 
with a considerable increase in recent years. It 
is in these schools that the administrators of the 
Countess of Dufferin's Fund,!^ which has done so 
much for the medical treatment of women, place 
most students, though some are also to be found 
studying in the Universities. Three of these 

^* Quinquennial Report, vol. i. 

15 Founded in 1884, the total value of hospital 
buildings connected with the Fund is now 50 lakhs. 
90 students are in receipt of stipends. Cf. Report. 



2 14 Education of Women of India 

schools are specially women's schools — the North 
India Medical School for Christian Women at 
Ludhiana, the female branch of the Agra Medical 
School, and one centre in the Bombay Presidency 
with some half-dozen pupils. The work of the 
former, as it illustrates by contrast the serious 
problem of the mixed medical schools and colleges, 
is worthy of special notice. This school, which is 
under the management of a private committee, 
including members of the Indian Medical Service, 
was originally founded in 1894 through the agency 
of seven missionary societies working in the 
United Provinces and the Panjab. Its aim was to 
secure " that the young Christian women who 
pass through a medical course, and then go out 
to Government or Native State or Mission 
Hospital work, should be so safeguarded and 
trained that they shall be worthy representatives 
of the religion they profess." 1^ The dangers of 
the joint-system of instruction in all subjects, 
with unlimited association in hospitals and 
museums, is apparent in every centre, with its con- 
sequent effect in some cases of bringing " female 
education and emancipation into discredit." 
A letter of application to the Ludhiana School 
throws some light on prevalent conditions : — 

" I require a Female Hospital Assistant for my 
Hospital, and am very anxious to get one who has 
been trained under Medical Women. As your 

^^ A Problem and its Solution, E. M. Brown, M.A., 
M.D. (Procurable from 36 Fairfield Road, Bromley, 
Kent.) 



University Education 215 

School is the only one in India of this sort, would 
you be kind enough to let me have one ? This 
is not a Mission Hospital but one for par da 
Moslem women only, under the Dufferin Fund, 
and it is essential that the Assistant be respect- 
able. (This I find rather difficult to get amongst 
the class trained under males.) It is perhaps 
against your rules to supply Dufferin Fund 
Hospitals, but I hope you will stretch a point 
and oblige me by letting me have one, as I have 
had a great deal of trouble for the past year with 
Assistants." 

The students of the Ludhiana School flock 
from all parts of India for the benefit of this 
tuition under qualified medical women. There 
are at present some twenty-seven Indian Christian 
students and five Eurasians, taking the four years' 
course, while some thirty others are training as 
" compounders." The linked women's hospital,i^ 
with a record of 1300 in-patients and 26,000 new 
out-patients in 1910, affords the necessary oppor- 
tunity for practice. The staff is drawn from 
India, Britain, and America, and consists of 
eight fully qualified medical women. The record 
of the school is one of slow and steady progress in 
efficiency and numbers, and the latest stage is the 
proposed affiliation to the Panj ab University, the 
negotiations for which are progressing favourably. 
Under these conditions the school would be able 
as a college to send students up for the M.B., B.S. 

^7 Further hospital practice might be available in 
Ludhiana. 



2i6 Education of Women of India 

examination, and the Government students would 
be transferred to it from Lahore. The hostel life 
of the students is under careful superintendence, 
and arrangements are being made for the accom- 
modation of non-Christian students. The con- 
trast between the life here and that of women 
medical students in Bombay or Calcutta is 
marked ; and if it be argued that the highest 
professional ability cannot be obtained with so 
limited a hospital roll, there is surely need for 
modifying in some way the conditions at these 
centres. Two Government hostels for women 
medical students exist in Calcutta in close 
proximity to the two hospitals ;i^ the question, 
however, concerns not only hostel life but pro- 
fessional training under circumstances which will 
not injure character. The complete separation 
in the London and Edinburgh Schools of Medicine 
for Women affords a striking contrast, A certain 
number of Indian students, perhaps one or two a 
term, come over for a full or supplementary 
course in British colleges, as this qualification 
secures a better post on return. 

To sum up, the problem respecting Indian 
women students, in both Arts and Medicine, 
arises, apparently, from the need of a numerical 
increase, from the lack of conditions so adapted 
to Oriental ideas that the highest courses shall be 
open without difficulty to women of all ranks, and 
from the lack of a curriculum calculated to raise the 
standard of the intellectual work done. Moreover, 
^^ The Y.W.C.A. has student branches in these hostels. 




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University Education 217 

mental training must be combined with such 
opportunities for the development of character 
as shall ensure to Indian women the leaders 
they require. 

These needs interact, and affect one another ; 
the numerical problem depends, as we have seen, 
on certain conditions of Indian society, and also 
on the attractive force of the education offered 
and its appeal to Indian ideas, as well as on the 
possibility of pursuing it under conditions which 
shall not be too utterly opposed to the tradition 
of the country. With the increase in the numbers 
receiving Secondary education there has not been 
a corresponding increase in the college courses. 
Mr Covernton, in the quotation given above, 
further emphasizes this, and points to the real 
need of Bombay, for which the appointment of a 
woman tutor would only be a temporary ex- 
pedient. " If the conditions of University educa- 
tion were in accord with Oriental ideas of women's 
functions, the number would go up by leaps and 
bounds. I am confident that the time is ripe for 
the creation in Bombay of a women's college 
managed by a staff of Oxford or Cambridge 
women graduates." ^^ The spontaneous move- 
ment amongst Indian gentlemen to organize 
high-class schools, where, if desired, parda can be 
kept, points to further possibilities. At present, 
if a Mohammedan or Hindu girl of high caste, who 
had been educated in some such school, or 
privately, desired to take a University course, 
'^^ Bombay Public Instruction Report, 1910. 



2i8 Education of Women of India 

there would be no opportunity for her doing so. 
A Mohammedan lady, whose daughter was being 
educated in one of the mission schools in Bombay, 
told the writer she could not think of letting her 
attend any college in that city, though she was 
anxious for her to have University education. 
The only possible course was an English college, 
such as Cheltenham. The migration to England 
of Indian women Arts' students has, so far, not 
been extensive ; about a dozen have studied at 
Cambridge, Oxford, and Cheltenham ; a larger 
number may have gone to America. The mis- 
sionary societies which struck out a bold policy 
for attracting men by their great Christian 
colleges have not made any corresponding move 
to meet the new situation in women's education. 
The one or two women's colleges which exist are 
created so predominantly for Christian girls that 
they attract only isolated pupils of other faiths, 
and these not of the most influential classes.^o It 
seems strange that in Great Britain the highest 
education for women should be to a certain ex- 
tent apart, with the necessary contact carefully 
chaperoned, whereas in India, with a very diffe- 
rent tradition of womanhood, one girl may sit 
alone in a class of over a hundred students. It 
may be argued that the best way to overcome this 
tradition is to ignore it, and that it should not be 
yielded to in any way, least of all in the case of 
Higher education, where the students have pre- 

-^ Exceptions exist in the Diocesan College, Calcutta, 
in the case of non-residents. 



University Education 219 

sumably risen above it. Some English women 
of experience in India take this bold attitude. On 
the other hand it is of the highest importance in 
any transitional stage to secure leaders from every 
stratum of the population ; and if education be the 
only safe lever for the uplift of women in India, 
it seems a strategic mistake practically to close 
its highest stages to those whose families hold 
by a certain type of decorum which prohibits 
co-education. 

By adaptation of the curriculum is not meant 
in any sense the lowering of the intellectual 
standard nor the introduction of the element of 
domestic economy and so called " feminine sub- 
jects " which are necessary at a lower stage, but 
rather a re-arrangement of studies which shall 
ensure more individual research and a fuller com- 
prehension of the material studied. The revision 
of the curriculum is at present under consideration 
in at least one of the Universities, and is a matter 
for experts. The action of the University of Cam- 
bridge in permitting women candidates to go up 
for Honours courses only, and the success which 
has attended women candidates for the Triposes, 
suggest the advantage of specialized studies in the 
case of women. Mrs Satthianadhan's opinion of 
the effect of University education on women is 
illuminating. " It will make women more 
methodical, more orderly in their arrangements, 
more precise, and better able to weigh causes and 
results." 21 A three years' specialized course 
2^ Indian Ladies' Magazine. 



220 Education of Women of India 

would tend in many ways to develop these 
qualities, and would possibly produce the new 
and more thorough type of teaching which is so 
greatly needed in the schools. The intellectual 
strain which is so marked a feature at present 
might in this way be lessened without detrimental 
effect upon real intellectual development. 

Towards the end of last century, it seemed as if 
the goal of the women's educational movement in 
Great Britain might be reached by the formation 
of a Women's University with federal colleges. 
Various reasons have led rather to their taking 
a parallel place in the existing Universities, 
though still under somewhat anomalous conditions, 
so far as Oxford and Cambridge are concerned. 
The American solution is a different one. Vassar, 
Bryn Mawr, Wellesley, Mount Holyoake, and 
others have their separate degrees and completely 
separated life. It is possible that the solution of 
the Indian problem will rather follow these latter 
lines, and there are indications of this ideal, some- 
what nebulously outlined, in the writings of 
leading Indian women. Such a Women's Uni- 
versity with affiliated colleges in the different 
large centres might establish a new era and a new 
tradition in the education of women. A com- 
petent staff of Indian women-graduates, whose 
presence would secure the students from de- 
orientalizing influences, and of English women- 
graduates competent to teach on specialized 
lines, would raise the educational standard. The 
complete separation of such colleges from the 



University Education 221 

High schools would render a corporate life 
possible, and give to the Indian girl graduates the 
opportunity of carrying on their studies in con- 
genial and stimulating surroundings. " To them, 
too, college life might bring that joyous spring- 
time of youth, friendship, and unfettered delight 
of study and leisure which have hitherto been 
withheld from them." ^^ The Maharani of Baroda 
notes in her recent book ^^ the tendency of women's 
education in Europe to take a too exclusively 
literary form, and the consequent overcrowding of 
certain professions. While there is no danger 
that the teaching profession will be overcrowded 
in India for decades to come, the warning is not 
without its value. Such a University might have 
affiliated with it colleges of Indian Domestic 
Science and Economy, but the theory for this has 
yet to be worked out. 

It may seem to some readers, especially 'to those 
rightly imbued with the Eastern principle of 
festina lente, that the day for women's colleges 
in India has not yet come, and that all available 
strength should be concentrated on Secondary 
education ; and yet, on the other hand, the crux of 
the whole educational problem may be found here. 
Miss Emily Davies, who by universal consent 
stands as the chief pioneer of the movement in 
Britain, realized from the first that the reform 

22 Alice Zimmern on the aims of the Girton pioneers 
in Renaissance of Girls' Education. 

23 Position of Women in Indian Life, by Her Highness 
the Maharani of Baroda. 



222 Education of Women of India 

in girls' education must begin at the top. The 
same principle is seen in the history of Cheltenham 
Ladies College (founded 1853), and the early 
efforts of Miss Beale to face the same problem of 
the need of teachers, which is felt in every Indian 
school to-day. " Her efforts show how hard it 
was to found a school before the reformation of 
the higher education had given the necessary 
stimulus from above. It was a case of making 
bricks without straw." 2* The proximity of cer- 
tain dates is suggestive. In 1869, the " Girton 
Pioneers " first met at Hitchin to read for the 
examinations of the University of Cambridge. 
In 1872, the Girls' Public Day School Company 
was founded, and in 1879 the Oxford Women's 
Halls were opened. The two movements are of 
necessity contemporaneous, and cannot be viewed 
as successive stages towards the same end. 

The beginning exists in India ; much excellent 
pioneer work has been done, and it now remains 
to raise the whole movement to a status from 
which its future development on Indian and 
womanly lines would be assured. 

2* Renaissance of Girls' Education. A. Zimmern. 



X 

THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN EDUCATION 

" Education, education — education about what ? 
Education about matter, mere raaterial things, thoughts 
and ideas. Education, according to the Vedas, is the 
opening of the petals of the mind-lotus to the rays of 
the spiritual sun, and that is what we now want first." 
— Swami Baba Pramanand Bharati. 

THE analysis of the religious element in 
education is a deep and subtle problem, 
and yet, at the same time, this element is 
the touchstone by which all systems of education 
are ultimately tested. The formation of in- 
dependent thought and judgment, and of an 
upright character, spontaneously moral, may lead 
in adolescent years to the attainment of some 
unifying philosophy of life which shall dominate 
and satisfy the religious nature. The successful 
quest of this during the " silent period," and the 
re-interpretation of it during a college career, 
must be the aim of all education. How is this 
aim to be achieved ? The separation of religion 
from education in a Christian country, where 
morality is under the corporate sanction of 
inherited religious tradition, may be a dangerous 
experiment, but it is made under the supposition 
223 



2 24 Education of Women of India 

that the influence of home and Church will 
supplement the teaching at school. In India, a 
country of conflicting faiths, all in a period of 
transition, and withal a country of deep religious 
instinct, the case is different. There is no cor- 
porate sanction : religion and moral principles are 
not necessarily kindred terms ; the influence of 
school and of home are often diverse, and thus the 
former, if it is in any sense to be the builder of 
character, must include religion as the only 
unifying educational factor. Theoretically, this 
statement is justified and endorsed, not only by 
missionary enthusiasts, but by official opinion 
and by Indian sentiment in so far as it is articulate ; 
its practical endorsement, on the other hand, is 
one of the most difficult problems of Indian 
administration. A brief sketch of the attitude 
of Government in the past, and of the modern 
desire for its modification may serve to show the 
relation which this question bears to the present 
development of women's education. 

The great educational Charter of 1854 estab- 
lished the Indian system on the only basis which 
seemed in accord with our whole Indian policy — 
that of religious neutrality ; but it was not, as is 
sometimes erroneously supposed, an endorsement 
of a wholly secular pohcy. The Government 
could not of itself undertake direct religious 
teaching in its own schools, but the system of 
" grants-in-aid " with which it endowed the 
voluntary schools was " based on an entire 
abstinence from interference with the religious 



The Religious Element in Education 225 

instruction conveyed in the schools assisted." 
" The framers of this Despatch entertained the 
hope that under its provisions Hindu, Moham- 
medan, and Christian managers would supply, 
each class in its own particular way, what was 
already known to be a great defect of the course 
of instruction in Government institutions. The 
same hope was one of the chief reasons that led 
the Education Commission to make and the 
Government of India to adopt the recommenda- 
tion that ' the improvement and extension of 
institutions under private management be the 
principal care of the Department.' " ^ At the 
same time many of its members believed that 
even the more secular instruction given in the 
Government schools would remove ignorance and 
superstition, and ultimately pave the way to- 
wards the acceptance of Christianity. Moreover, 
definite provision was made for the inquiring 
mind. " The Bible is, we understand, placed in 
the libraries of the colleges and schools, and the 
pupils are freely able to consult it. This is as it 
should be ; and, moreover, we have no desire to 
prevent, or discourage, any explanations which 
the pupils may of their own free-will ask from 
the masters on the subject of the Christian 
religion, provided that such information be given 
out of school hours." The agitation of those 
who wished a more definitely Christian attitude 
to be adopted aimed at voluntary teaching of the 

^ Unrest and Education in India. Wm. Miller, D.D,, 
LL.D., CLE. 



226 Education of Women of India 

Bible, where a suitable teacher could be procured, 
and a suggestion of teaching the Indian religions 
parallel with it is scarcely found. The argument, 
as it might be presented to an Indian expostulating 
in favour of neutrality, is thus put in Sir John 
Lawrence's Despatches : — " We offer you the 
Bible in our Government schools because we 
believe it to be for your inestimable good if you 
choose to listen to it. We do not wish you to 
study it unless you do so voluntarily. But you 
cannot expect us to help in teaching your religion, 
which we do not believe to be true. That you 
can do for yourselves." 2 " The Indian religions 
ought not to be taught ; they have ample means 
of their own for doing this." It should be noted 
that at this time the Samajes had not arisen, nor 
the Hindu reform movement, and that the 
Western comprehension of things Indian and 
religious was much more limited than it is now. 
The Despatch of 1859, after reviewing the various 
arguments for the modification of the " secular " 
policy, finally sums up — " They [Her Majesty's 
Government] are unable, therefore, to sanction 
any modification of the rule of strict religious 
neutrality, as it has hitherto been enforced in the 
Government schools, and it accordingly remains 
that the Holy Scriptures being kept in the library, 
and being open to all the pupils who may wish to 
study them, and the teachers being at liberty to 
afford instruction and explanations regarding 

2 Despatches on Christianity in India — Sir John 
Lawrence {Times Reprint). 



The Religious Element in Education 227 

them to all who may voluntarily seek it, the course 
of study in all Government Institutions be, as 
heretofore, confined to secular subjects." ^ The 
emphasis on the place of the aided school and the 
Government school has varied in the different 
periods of Indian administration and in different 
localities, but in the main in the education of boys 
the Government or municipal school has pre- 
dominated. Its possible religious influence has 
been negative ; and while there is no record of the 
English teacher expounding the Bible to inquir- 
ing minds after school hours, as the Despatches 
fondly picture, there is ample evidence that the 
Western education introduced sapped the founda- 
tions of ancient belief and substituted no new 
positive sanction of moral principles. The Hindu 
and Mohammedan effort of the early days on 
Western lines was also, with the exeption of 
Aligarh College, largely on a secular basis. 
Thus, the place of definite religious teaching was 
confined to the schools under missionary manage- 
ment, and though their influence, especially in 
South India, has been enormous, it can in no 
sense be considered conterminous with Western 
education in India. A predominantly secular 
education has therefore produced its own fruits, 
and a discussion of it when so much literature 
already exists on the subject is superfluous. 

The modern reaction is manifest in popular 
speeches, in the Press, and in Government reports. 
An Indian writer pleads that the Durbar boon of 
3 Despatch of the Secretary of State, 1859. 



228 Education of Women of India 

additional grants for education is no boon, but a 
curse, if it perpetuate only the " nauseatingly 
materialistic, all - intellectual, and soul-killing 
system," and is not in consonance with the 
" natural ideals, national aspirations, and the 
world-old mental characteristics " * of the Indian 
people. It would be easy to multiply quotations 
in grandiloquent language, which, for all their 
quaintness, have a strong element of truth. 
Parallel with the plea for religious instruction, 
and to a certain extent confused with it, is the 
plea for moral instruction, either apart from or 
based on religion. The most trustworthy 
evidence as to the extent of this demand and its 
somewhat incoherent nature was given at the 
Government Educational Conference held recently 
in Allahabad, when a whole day was devoted to 
the subject of Moral and Religious Education. 
The preceding questionnaire inquired {a) how far 
moral lessons were included in the ordinary 
Primary readers, (b) whether special moral text- 
books were in use, (c) whether direct moral 
instruction was given and appreciated, {d) whether 
the trend of public opinion was really in favour 
of moral instruction in the schools, and finally 
(e) whether any divergent views thereon were 
based on differences of creed. Most of the 
provinces reported a certain element of moral 
instruction in the shape of stories and poetry in 
the readers, with the comment that these were 

* • • King George and the Hindoos," XIX Century, 
January 1912. 



The Religious Element in Education 229 

mainly used as reading or grammar lessons, or else 
were too didactically taught to have any lasting 
effect. Certain moral text-books are in use, but 
these are mainly of a religious nature and found 
in the newer Indian schools. The " Sanatana 
Dharma " series, issued by the Central Hindu 
College, Benares, which attempts to deal only 
with basal principles of religion, is used by the 
Surat municipality, in Mysore, in Baroda and 
elsewhere, but is not generally acceptable to 
orthodox Hindus. The classic Bhaghavat Gita — 
an eclectic synopsis reconcihng different systems 
of Hindu philosophy and religion — is also taught 
as a class-book in the higher classes of certain 
schools in Bengal which were started as rivals to 
mission schools. The Anjuman-i-Islamia, Lahore, 
also prepares books for both Primary and Secon- 
dary classes in Mohammedan schools, and in these 
again moral instruction is imparted through 
religious references. Moral text-books pure and 
simple are not used except occasionally those of 
the International Moral League in some of the 
hostels in Baroda and elsewhere. As regards 
lessons in direct moral teaching, apart from 
religion, there seem to be exceedingly few. A 
few debating societies exist for this purpose. One 
school reports a weekly lecture thereon, but the 
boys of the school are credited with stoning a 
visiting cricket team which had defeated them ! 
Moral instruction combined with religion is more 
common than it is thought in the Indian aided 
schools, and various instances are on record. 



230 Education of Women of India 

The old-fashioned Koranic schools and Sanskrit 
" tols " are steeped in religion. " To describe the 
system of moral training in such institutions 
would be to write an, account of the rites and 
tenets of the Hindu and Mohammedan religions." ^ 
With two exceptions the reports show in detail a 
general state of dissatisfaction with things as they 
are, and a desire for definite moral instruction 
combined with a strong preference for a religious 
basis where such could be made possible. The 
words " moral instruction " seem also to have 
become a sort of shibboleth. " People are also 
rather vague as to what comes under the head of 
religion or morality." A Brahman student is 
instanced as having devoted much time to religion, 
which was found to mean " breathing exercises." 
" There are a few of exceptional intelligence who 
hold that the teaching of morality must be based 
on religion. These would advocate the teaching 
of a religion, or rather a combination of religious 
truths that all men could agree on." " The public 
mind in Bengal is not ripe for the idea of moral 
instruction totally severed from religion." At 
the same time it is noticed that little advantage 
has as yet been taken of the opportunity to teach 
religion in the Government schools in the United 
Provinces and in Burma. The restrictions which 
surround it in the former and the recent date of 
the permission for it in the latter may possibly 
account for this. 

The bulk of the answers to the questionnaire 
s Allahabad Conference, Report, 191 1. 



The Religious Element in Education 231 

issued by the Conference may be summed up 
in respect of moral instruction as follows : it is 
inefficient, unless impressed by the personality 
of the teacher, and unless based on religion ; 
a merely moral system can be accepted only in 
circumstances which completely prohibit the 
religious element. Combined with the desire for 
it is a certain healthy scepticism as to whether 
moral instruction can be imparted in small doses, 
and whether the more effective influence is not the 
general discipline and tone of the school. The 
discussions at the Conference, which represented 
every shade of oflicial and religious opinion, 
followed the same line. The emphatic testimony 
of Christian and Mohammedan dwelt on the need 
for the rehgious sanction, the Hindu testimony 
on the same need, but also on the impossibihty 
for Hindus of finding a common ground amongst 
themselves. " No teaching which rests merely 
upon the basic principles of religion will be ac- 
cepted by Hindus as taking the place of directly 
orthodox religion." ^ The incorporation of moral 
teaching in the Government system by means 
of a general text-book seemed at best only a 
makeshift, and did not meet with universal 
approval. 

The evidence of the Allahabad Conference 
reveals a need and a deadlock. The country needs 
morality taught under religious sanction, but how 
can a Government pledged irrevocably to religious 
neutrality provide this ? The granting of equal 
6 G. K. Gokhale. 



232 Education of Women of India 

opportunity in the Government and municipal 
schools for parallel instruction in the various 
faiths, as Sir Valentine Chirol suggests,' would 
not meet the special case of the Hindus, and 
might possibly complicate the position of the 
mission schools. The disintegration of a school 
where rival influences were at work would further 
render impossible the unity necessary to tone and 
discipline. The solution of the problem seems 
rather to lie in the religious influence of a single 
kind, and this is possible only in the aided schools. 
The development of these, and the allocation of a 
greater proportion of public funds to them, especi- 
ally now that the indigenous Indian schools of 
the newer type are developing religious instruc- 
tion, would be in historical continuity with the 
principles of 1854, and would not contradict the 
principles of neutrality. 

The problem of female education was not con- 
sidered separately at Allahabad, and there was 
no reference throughout the discussion to girls' 
schools. But though girls' education may be 
assumed to be some fifty years behind that of 
boys, a great deal of the report has a very 
direct bearing on our subject as indicating dangers 
to be avoided and a more profitable course to be 
pursued. The whole question is even more vital 
in their case, as the removal of religious and moral 
principles would be fraught with consequences 
even more serious to the community. How far 
is the education of women in India undermining 
^ Indian Unrest. Sir Valentine Chirol. 



The Religious Element in Education 233 

their religious beliefs ? How far is this influence 
being counteracted by moral teaching, or by 
definite instruction in the principles of their own 
religion or of Christianity ? 

As regards the vast proportion of girls who 
attain a mere literacy in the Primary schools, the 
disintegrating influence can scarcely be said to 
have begun ; on the other hand, in the Govern- 
ment and municipal schools there is a lack of con- 
structive influence guiding them towards that 
which is true, honest, and of good report. Ex- 
ceptional women amongst the few trained teachers 
may use the opportunity afforded by the moral 
lessons in the readers, but only the exceptional 
women. Schools started for girls by Indian 
societies have arisen mostly in the later period of 
religious revival, and some of their Primary 
schools are saturated with religion. In so far as 
an outsider can judge, this tends mainly to the 
abnormal development of the repetitive faculty. 
In the Christian Primary schools the influence of 
the Biblical instruction given naturally varie? 
enormously according to the method of the Indian 
teacher and according to the frequency of the 
visits of the English missionary. The writer has 
watched a Scripture lesson given by an Indian 
teacher to a group of Bengali girls aged about 
eight years ; their attention, response, and inde- 
pendent questions compared favourably with 
those of English children of the same age. It is 
also part of the ordinary experience of the zenana 
visitor to find the influence and memory of these 



234 Education of Women of India 

school lessons still alive amongst those who have 
long left school. 

In the Secondary and Training stages, the 
question is totally different, and the beginning 
of the influence which has proved so disastrous 
on the men's side is already felt. The Head of 
one Government Normal school stated, " Our 
education cannot fail to imdermine their previous 
ideas," and then commented afterwards on the 
ineffectiveness of the moral instruction she was 
trying to introduce. In some of the Government 
schools where the Principal is a woman of 
special abihty and tact, moral instruction is 
given, but as a rule it is not attempted. In the 
Government mixed colleges there is naturally no 
influence of this nature. In the Indian schools 
religious instruction is the rule, its character, as 
indicated in the reports to the Allahabad Con- 
ference, differing enormously in different places. 
In some it is carefully thought-out moral instruc- 
tion, linked with those ideas in the particular 
religious faith which bear it out. The Benares 
school is a typical example of this ; the whole 
school join in morning puja to Sarasvati, the 
goddess of learning, and there are special times 
during the week for instruction from the Sanatana 
Dharma series. The new Hindu High school in 
Bombay is visited once a week for the purpose 
by a Brahman, and a small catechism of a more 
orthodox nature is in use. The only Buddhiot 
girls' Anglo- Vernacular school in Burma is marked 
by a strong religious tone. Instruction is given 



The Religious Element in Education 235 

daily by an elderly priest to the whole school 
together, " in order that they may feel religion 
is the most important thing in daily life and 
therefore must be daily." A specimen of the 
catechism used is typical : — 

" What are the three things to seek daily ? 

Truth, Knowledge, Righteousness. 
" What will you do when you go home ? 

We will do salutation to our parents. 
" And afterwards ? 

We will do our work. 
" And in the morning ? 

Our first thought will be of righteousness." ^ 

Religious and moral instruction is now given 
in most of the Parsi schools of Bombay under the 
auspices of a special Zoroastrian Association. 
This is, I understand, an innovation of the last 
ten years. In the schools under committees of 
different faiths the same difficulty is felt as in 
the Government schools. It is solved in one 
case by carefully prepared moral intsruction on 
an eclectic basis, in another by parallel religious 
observances. There is no uniformity in practice, 
but the universal attempt is a clear proof that 
the Indian desire for education on a religious 
basis for their daughters is genuine. 

The Christian factor so far has been the pre- 
dominating one, for the " bulk of female Secondary 
education is provided by the missionaries." ^ The 

^ The quotation is from a verbal translation given 
during the visit to the school. 
" Quinquennial Report, vol. i. p. 257. 



236 Education of Women of India 

religious atmosphere is one of unity and simplicity. 
It is part of the wonderful tolerance of Hinduism 
and its desire to embrace other faiths in its per- 
vading atmosphere, that Hindu girls can share 
outwardly in Christian worship without apparent 
realization of its incompatability with their 
ancestral religion. The daily instruction is given 
in class groups, and where the non-Christian 
element enters largely there is usually a separate 
classification for this. Its bearing is stated in 
simple direct terms by a teacher, " The educa- 
tion of any child is not complete which has not 
led it consciously to realize the supernatural, 
and the revelation of God in Christ." In the 
few schools where a " conscience clause " exists, 
it is not as a rule taken advantage of. The girls 
in one convent who were thus exempted sat in 
the back row quietly and were not asked 
questions ; they also attended chapel, but might 
take their own books with them. Another 
curious instance of the working of the Hindu mind 
is seen in the case of an Indian gentleman who 
withdrew his daughters from the regular school 
lesson by virtue of the conscience clause, but sent 
them back voluntarily to a special Scripture 
class held once a week. Caste prejudice was 
possibly justified by this arrangement. The tone 
and influence of the Christian schools is greatly 
appreciated ; it is this which fills the Diocesan 
School in Calcutta with pupils, although a thorough 
education is available in the Bethune School. A 
high-caste Brahman lady in Bombay testified in 



The Religious Element in Education 237 

the warmest tones to the wonderful character 
and spirit of the Catholic sisters who had educated 
her, and to whom she had sent her daughters. It 
is not only the English education which attracts, 
it is something more. It would be invidious to 
multiply instances, but the testimony is practically 
universal to the acceptability of educational work 
done in the name of Christ. 

The three factors contributing to the education 
of women in India have thus a varying contribu- 
tion to make to the most fundamental element in 
education, and it is this diversity which supphes 
the keynote to the whole problem, and indicates 
the line for Western action in the future. The 
share of the Government, as indicated by the 
present policy in Eastern Bengal, Madras,i° the 
United Provinces, and elsewhere will of necessity 
become an increasing one in the direct establish- 
ment of schools, if there is not a sufficient 
development of aided schools to meet the rising 
tide. Its contribution to religion will be a 
negative one. The spontaneous Indian schools 
which attempt to supply the need are at their 
best — and they are not always at their best — 
only an imperfect solution. It would be but a 
poor form of Christianity which failed to recognize 
the diverse manners in which God has revealed 
Himself to the world, and the truth of permanent 
value in the great ethnic faiths of the world 
which finds its final interpretation in That which 

1° Unrest and Education in India. Wm. Miller, D.D., 
LL.D.. CLE. 



238 Education of Women of India 

is Perfect. There is nothing more striking in the 
modern reform movements of India than the 
reflection in them of Christian thought and 
ideahsm, and this is specially seen in the instruc- 
tion given in the girls' schools. Christian hymns 
are used with certain specific verses left out, the 
Lord's Prayer is printed in a Parsi manual of 
devotion, verses from Watts and Charles Kingsley 
are in the Benares series, and the hope of Christ 
as the Lode Star of Indian thought can be read 
in many a school manual. Together with all this 
is the perpetual allegorizing of such facts in Indian 
literature as will not bear the pure ethical light. 
Principal Paranjpe of the Fergusson College at 
Poona, in arguing at the Bombay Educational 
Conference for a secular basis for moral teaching, 
held that to make morality depend upon religion 
is dangerous if the religious sanction comes to be 
no longer regarded as binding. His speech is so 
illuminating as to be worth while quoting in full : 
— " In times like ours where landmarks that were 
but yesterday regarded as perennial are being 
removed to-day and are likely to be forgotten 
to-morrow, it is best not to cling to too many 
rocks. The one solid rock on which we can rest 
is our own reason. If eating pork is a heinous 
sin with one set of people, beef with another, and 
any meat at all with a third, how can the alleged 
basis of morality be regarded as absolute ! 
Especiallv when, as in India, there are various 
religions, each religion divided into innumerable 
sects, and each sect divided into many separate 



The Religious Element in Education 239 

sections ; when the feeling aroused by any 
religious question is of a pitch which can hardly 
be conceived in Western countries ; when the 
respectability of a man is in inverse ratio to the 
number of people he is able to associate with 
without coming into conflict with the prevailing 
religious ideas — it will be seen that the less we 
have to do with religion in moulding the character 
of young children the better for our national 
being. Let boys be taught to see that there are 
some principles which they can all believe irrespec- 
tive of the fact that they belong to one religion 
or several. It is only in this way that our various 
races can be brought closer together." n To bring 
morality into relation with a religion which is 
ethical to the core, and which has attained with 
modern science and historical criticism only a fuller 
and deeper content, is to place it on a new foot- 
ing and to endow it with spiritual power. While 
full sympathy must be extended to the Indian 
effort, the emphasis must fall on the Christian 
schools. They alone can supply in full the 
religious element so needed in Indian education. 
The present situation offers to them in increasing 
measure an opportunity for a voluntary contri- 
bution of the needed spiritual force and power to 
the educational development of India. Their 
contribution, as already indicated, has been 
great, but modern conditions demand something 
more. Old schools must be remodelled, new 
schools started ; independent work must be done 
11 Allahabad Conference Report, 191 1, 



240 Education of Women of India 

in adapting curricula to Indian ideas and the 
special needs of girls ; the whole educational 
machinery must be raised to the level of the 
standard required for men if the opportunity for 
imparting this spiritual power is to be retained. 

No social or religious problem can bear isolation, 
and if this book has treated the question of the 
education of women in detail and in its technical 
bearings, the relation of that question to the 
Christianizing of Indian life and thought is the 
main interest in its composition. The problem 
is a question of character, but of character 
built upon personal contact with the Christ-life 
in God — a question of environment and curricula, 
but also of showing that Christianity is of the 
East, and Eastern in its spiritual appeal ; a 
question of womanhood, but also of that more 
perfect human fellowship where Christ is all and 
in all. " Jesus Christ, by the ^^ilent action of a 
lifetime, laid the first emphasis on the identity of 
woman's humanity rather than on the difference 
of her sex, thus both dignifying her and man in 
his attitude to her." 12 The solution of India's 
social problem lies in the fulfilment of the Christian 
ideal, and the progress towards it must be a united 
one, in which both sexes share alike. The nega- 
tive influence of the home is often found to be 
the strongest in the student life of the great 
Christian colleges, and many an earnest man has 
fallen back from what he seemed to have gained 
because of a silent, unseen woman. The work of 

*2 International Review of Missions, January 191 2. 
Article by T. Gairdner. 



The Religious Element in Education 241 

Christian education in leavening thought and 
producing the atmosphere in which there is hope 
of the ultimate acceptance of Christianity is 
regarded by many as the most potent influence 
for the Kingdom of God in India. The great 
majority of converts in later life, who belonged to 
the high castes, have been drawn from the ranks 
of those who have been educated in Christian 
schools, and in spite of intense opposition there 
are actually men to-day who seek for baptism 
during their college career. 1^ There is the further, 
and perhaps in the sure Providence of God the 
greater, result in the permeation of Hindu society 
by Christian thought and sentiment, which may 
yet pave the way for a movement of the higher 
castes to Christ. At the recent anniversary 
services of the Prarthana Samaj in Bombay, 
the sermon preached by a Justice of the High 
Court, on the present day as " The Age of the 
Holy Spirit, the Age of Education," throbbed 
throughout with the reverence of one who had 
studied at the feet of Jesus. The long open hall 
was packed from end to end with young men who 
had been touched by the new ideas ; in one corner 
sat some twelve Indian women whose sympathies 
were with them. The disparity of the two sexes 
in the audience indicated how the leavening 
influence of Christian education will be deprived 
of half its power unless it touches the family as 
the unit of civihzation. The " direct result " 

" The Aim of Educational Missions. East and West, 
January 1912. W. E. S. Holland. 

Q 



242 Education of Women of India 

longed for by those who teach in Christian schools 
is not lacking. It is unnecessary in these days 
to contradict once more the impression that the 
baptism of children and girls of immature age is 
attempted. There are some cases of the baptism 
of mother and child together, where careful 
zenana visiting has followed up the school pupil ; 
others — and these are the majority — are secret 
disciples whose whole environment is massed up 
against an open confession. One Moslem girl in 
the higher classes of a Christian school is con- 
vinced of the truth of Christianity ; every 
vacation her parents inquire whether she is a 
Christian yet, and she knows that if she replies 
in the affirmative all the advantages which her 
younger sisters are enjoying in another Christian 
school will cease. The case is not an extreme one. 
There is a different story of a girl in Burma who was 
found teaching the children of her jungle village 
daily, and gathering them on Sundays for Bible 
stories and hymns, " until," as she put it, " some 
one comes who can do it better than I." Her 
former school knew nothing of it, and but for the 
chance visit of a Commissioner's wife the tale would 
never have been told. Surely this is direct result. 
Christian educational work has also its place 
in the problem of the Indian Church. Ultimately 
the interpretation of Christ to India must be 
through the Indian, and the building up of a 
strong Indiaa Christian community is strategically 
necessary. The power of the Indian Christian 
home is in proportion to the power of the woman. 
Yet only 43% of the Christian community are 



The Religious Element in Education 243 

being educated. The dangers of mass movements 
and of illiterate, uninstructed Christianity on one 
side, of europeanizing the convert and educating 
him beyond his capacity on the other, show at 
the same time the necessity and the difficulty of 
action. The less romantic educational work of 
industrial orphanages has its place in the building 
up of a strong, true community. The training of 
Christian girls as teachers, through whom the 
leavening process will again worJi on the non- 
Christian village life, is perhaps the most definite 
and most direct form of influence. 

There is no more subtle problem than the lack 
of any characteristically Indian note in the 
Indian Christianity which is now assuming some 
numerical importance. " There is no doubt that 
the lack of vitality, the half dead and half alive 
spirituality which is the present characteristic of 
the Indian Church, is due to enforced conformity to 
Western standards of what is Christian and what is 
not Christian." i* It may be that this problem too 
has its relation to the education on Christian and 
Oriental lines of the women, who have been from 
all time the custodians of religion, the upholders 
of traditional custom, and conservative rite.^^ 

From whatever point the larger question of the 
whole country is viewed, it seems to attain per- 
spective and reality in relation to the education 
of its womanhood, and it is only thus as part of 
one great Christian movement that the feminist 
problem receives its right emphasis and value. 

^* Student Movement, 191 1, Article by S. K. Rudra. 
^5 Cp. on this The Renaissance in India, C. F. Andrews. 



XI 

CONCLUSION 

" Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of 
the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, 
unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." 

Ephesians iv. 13. 

THE spiritual heritage of the twentieth 
century is marked by extreme diversity 
and yet by a deep inward reaUty. The 
march of science and commerce, and the develop- 
ment of international relationships have given a 
new content and width to the world's thought. 
Isolated life is powerless, and a larger synthesis 
links the human race together. All such relation- 
ship must inevitably have spiritual content. The 
social upheaval, the claim of the individual for re- 
cognition, have a determining influence on the in- 
terpretation of our faith. Pragmatism in modem 
philosophy tests religion by its results. The reli- 
gious evolution necessitated by the play of inter- 
national forces is all the more critical in that it is 
to a certain extent unconscious. There is a deep 
Christianity apart from the Church as it is, which 
has yet to make the Church its own. The demand 
is now for reality — an embodiment of religious prin- 
ciples in modern social conditions ; for charity — a 
sympathy with the ethnic faiths which is the surer 
244 



Conclusion 245 

for belief in the finality of the Christian revela- 
tion ; for unity, since the modern mind cannot 
accept a Christianity which does not transcend 
and interpret all political, social, and intellectual 
life. "It is not our duty to-day to fight for a 
new religion ; we have but to awaken into fresh- 
ness of life the fathomless depths of Christianity. 
In so far as we succeed in doing this, we can 
completely satisfy the requirements of the new 
situation ; we can seek to realize a Christianity 
that shall be at once more universal and more 
active and intent on disengaging itself from its 
anthropomorphisms ; at the same time we shall 
view as our very own the wealth of religious 
profundity and inward experience which the older 
Christianity has gathered through its centuries of 
service, and shall seek to realize them in our own 
life." 1 

The growth of the desire to make Christianity 
universal is perhaps the most wonderful phase in 
the advance of thought ; while in one sense it is 
very old and a return to the primitive times of 
the faith, its modern phase thrills with fresh 
content by the ever-present working of the Spirit 
of God. The fresh light which criticism has shed 
on the historical Jesus has thrown once more into 
relief His wonderful doctrine of the brotherhood 
of men in the Fatherhood of God. The desire 
is not so much to bring salvation to those whom a 
rigid theology long condemned as " heathen," 
as to give freely of the fulness received in clear 

^ Christianity and the New Idealism, Rudolf Eucken. 



246 Education of Women of India 

consciousness of the solidarity of the human race. 
The world's best thought must be in terms of 
Christian philosophy ; the Kingdom is conceived 
as present now in power ; Christ is seen as the 
Fulfiller of all that is true and eternal in the 
ancient Faiths, and essentially the Saviour of the 
corporate life. 

The appeal of this book is thus for the Christian- 
izing of every factor in the education of women 
in India. None of the three contributing forces 
need be alien to the Spirit of Christ ; their unity, 
their mutual relationship, and the necessity of 
their presence in a transitional period must be 
felt and realized. Can all this educational 
advance be made, if not directly in the Name of 
Christ, at least in the power of His Spirit ? The 
Government influence must determine the tone 
and character of the whole frame-work. Can the 
Educational Service be supplied in all its branches 
with women who, while absolutely loyal to the 
great principle of neutrality, yet seek through it 
the spiritual in the material, and whose whole 
work in Empire-building is consciously related 
to the Kingdom of Christ ? India has known 
men of this type in the Government Service, and 
has esteemed their strict neutrality the more 
because of the Christian conviction which lay 
behind it. The influence of Christian ethics in 
the Government schools behind such mored 
instruction as is possible is enormous, and it 
naturally enters into the teaching of secular 
subjects. The direct influence permitted out of 



Conclusion 247 

school hours is a matter of great difficulty and 
calls for the utmost discretion. If the Govern- 
ment policy were ultimately modified so as to 
permit of parallel religious instruction, the direct 
opportunity would be present, but in the mean- 
time indirect religious influence has a very definite 
place. 

The spontaneous Indian element will have an 
important contribution to make in the determin- 
ing of the curricula. Will the Indian commi- 
mittees, who need the help of EngUsh women, 
be able to secure those of the highest talent and 
educational qualifications, who for the sake of 
Christ will give them of their best and remain, 
if silent, yet strong in the Faith ? This is hard 
and perplexing work, and calls for strong per- 
sonalities, but it is fraught with endless possi- 
bility. India will never be won if she does not 
behold Christianity in her midst lived in the lives 
of those who pursue their ordinary vocation in 
the Spirit of the Master. 

These suggestions are made with hesitation lest 
their attraction should weigh with those who could 
take the more definite Hne of associating them- 
selves with the educational work in India which is 
done directly in the name of Christ. The develop- 
ment of this work on sound lines by women of 
experience and of the highest educational quali- 
fications is, as has been indicated in the preceding 
chapter, the keynote to the whole problem. In 
no work is there such a magnificent sphere of 
influence as in this. A spiritual heritage involves 



248 Education of Women of India 

responsibility and opportunity. Nearly a cen- 
tury of patient work for the women of India is 
written in the annals of the Church : the task of 
the present day is to enter into this work with the 
same earnest patience. The need for action is 
urgent. It is not only that there are endless 
opportunities for new work which are not being 
utilized, but that schools with an excellent tradi- 
tion are not being raised to the modern standard 
of efficiency. They are inevitably handicapped 
by shortage in the English staff. A young girl 
of little experience may find herself almost at 
once at the head of some most complex institution, 
long before she would ever have had such a 
position of responsiblity at home. The perpetual 
strain on those who work on at such tension 
prevents the due result. In other cases the 
needed and desired expansion is checked by lack 
of the trained educator who could supervise 
village schools and their teachers, or who could 
put her energy and talent into building up a first- 
class school for non-Christian girls in the centre 
of some district where the new spirit is manifest. 
Facts indicate the appointment in the future of 
women to act as Tutors or Directresses of Studies 
to the girl students in the mixed mission colleges. 
There is the possibility also of women's Christian 
colleges. On every side the need is apparent, 
and the power to meet it lies with the women of 
the English-speaking countries. It is work which 
makes demands on intellect, on character, and on 
the religious nature. The hesitation to respond 



Conclusion 249 

to it springs in part from the sense of reverence 
for things sacred. There are women in educa- 
tional circles at home who hold the truth of 
Christianity and its sufficiency to meet the need 
of the whole world, but have not offered to share 
in educational missions lest their contribution be 
not of the required type. There is need in India 
for every type of worker. Christianity gains 
there, as at home, by interpretation through 
diverse personalities, and there is room for all who 
can reflect, it may be silently, its spirit and power 
in the daily routine of work. A sense of vocation 
is a sense of personal relationship to Him Who 
calls, and therein lies the motive power for all 
educational work done in the name of Christ. 



Appendix A 

Curricula 

Matriculation subjects of the five Universities of 
Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Panjab, and Allahabad: — 

English and Mathematics, compulsory in all. 

History and Geography, compulsory in all except 
Calcutta. 

Science, compulsory in Madras and Bombay ; 
elective in the other three. 

Classical language, compulsory in Calcutta, Bom- 
bay, Panjab ; alternative with vernacular in 
Madras ; elective in Allahabad. 

Vernacular compulsory in Calcutta and Bombay ; 
alternative with classical in Madras ; elective 
in Allahabad and Panjab. 

Drawing, elective in Allahabad and Panjab. 

Text-Books 
State Schools. — No choice. 

Aided Schools. — Choice among authorized alter- 
natives. 
Unaided but recognized Schools. — Abstention from 

books disapproved by Government. 
Text-book Committees. — In every case appointed 
by Government, and include official and non- 
250 



Appendices 251 

o£ficial members ; in some provinces places are 
reserved for members of the staff of mission 
schools. 
From Analysis of Educational Codes in British 
India. 

Appendix B 

Courses for the Training of Teachers 
Training colleges and classes: — 

(i) Graduate Course — one year. ^ Both in 

(2) Undergraduate Course — two years. / EngHsh. 

(3) Vernacular Course — after Middle examination 

— two years. 

(4) Lower Vernacular Course— after Upper Primary 

examination (women only) — two years. 

Courses (i) and (2) are pursued in the Universities, 
in special EngUsh Training schools for men, or in the 
Training Department of some European schools. 

Courses (3) and (4) in Government or mission 
Vernacular Training schools for women. These 
consist frequently of very small groups in an ordinary 
Middle or High school. A few students are also 
found in mixed schools. 



252 Education of Women of India 



Appendix C 

Diagram showing INCREASE OF FEMALE EDUCATION in India. 

-1433 'qpa iqyt 



t8<U 



Madras 
Bengal 



Bombay 



Burma 

riJNJAUB 



IBXP aoo ooq 




In Burma 9.6% of girls of school age are receiving educatic 

,, Bombay 7. 2% ,, 

,, Madras 6.8°/ 

,. Bengal 4. 3X \[ 

,, Panjab 3.1% ,, 

M United Provinces 1.3 /^ 



Bibliography 



Baroda, Maharani of. Position of Women in Indian 

Life. 
Bradley Birt, F. B. Romance of an Eastern Capital. 
Carpenter, J. E. Life of Mary Carpenter. 
Carpenter, M. Six Months in India. 
Chailley, J. Administrative Problems in British 

India. 
Chirol, Sir Valentine. Indian Unrest. 
Davies, E. Questions relating to Women. 
DuTT, R. C. Ancient India. 

DuTT, R. C. Translation of Ramdyana and Mahabhdrata. 
Festine, G. From the Land of the Princes. 
Fraser, Sir Andrew. Among Rajahs and Ryots. 
James, H. R. Education and Statesmanship in India, 

1797-1910. 
Low, Sidney. A Vision of India. 
Lyall, Sir Alfred. Asiatic Studies. 
MiTRA, S. C. Indian Problems. 
Nevinson, H. W. The New Spirit in India. 
Purser, W. C. B. Christian Missions in Burma. 
Poole, F. F. Woman's Influence in the East. 
Rice, B. L. Mysore. 
Rulers of India Series. Edited by Sir William 

Hunter. 
Richter, J. History of Missions in India. 
Scott, Sir Geo. Burma. 
Smith, Geo. Life of Alexander Buff. 
SoRABji, C. Between the Twilights. 
Steele, F. A. India through the Ages. 
Strachey, Sir John. India. 
ZiMMERN, Alice. Renaissance of Girls' Education, 

Imperial Gazetteer of India. 

Quinquennial Report on Progress of Education in India, 

1907. 
Public Instruction Reports, 1 860-1 910. Selections 
Statistical Abstract relating to British India, 1911, 
Reports of Various Missionary Societies. 

253 



Index 



Ahmedabad, i8i 
Ahmednagar, i8o 
Ajmer-Merwara, 156 
Alexandra School, 173 
All-Indian Moslem League, 24 
Allahabad Conference, 231 
Alwar, 154 
American Baptist Mission, 67, 

American Board, 178 
Amherst, Lady, 36, 103 
Anglo-Indian (Eurasian), 63, 

69, 76, 90, 180 
Anjuman-i-Islamia, 229 
Arya Samaj, 15, 133, 157 

Baptists, 67, 85, 151 

Baroda : Maharani of, 15, 103, 

221 ; 

schools in, 148, 229 

Benares, 133, 229 

Bengali, loi 

Besant, Mrs, 133 

Bethune School and College, 

36, 45, no, 194, 206 
Bharat Stri Mahamandal, 17 
Bhopal, 27 
Bhore, Miss, 181 
Bombay, 160 ff. 
Bose, Miss, in, 201 
Brahma Samaj, 14, 89, 102, III, 

123, 198 
Buddhist, 60, 66, 196, 234 

Calcutta, School Society, 

34. 103 
Capitation grant, 130 
Carpenter, Miss, 38, 42. 
Chanda Ramji, 167 
Chichgar, 173 



Chiefs' College, 145 
Christian students, 197 ff. 
Church Missionary Society, 104, 

139, 142, 194 
Clewer Sisters, 116 
Compulsory Education, 24, 

149 
Conversion, 242 
Cook, Miss, 35, 103 
Covernton, 210, 217 
Curriculum, 53, 71, 95, 125, 144, 

189, 203 
Cursetji, 166 

Dacca, 78 

Danish missionaries, 35 
Davies, Emily, 221 
Dehra Dun, 133 
Diocesan High School, Cal- 
cutta, 1x6, 194 
Duff, Dr Alex., 35 
Dufiferin Fund, 212 

Eden Girls' High School, 89 
Education : Despatch, 1854 : 34, 

224 ; 
Commission, 1884: 34, 

46; 

Despatch, 1904 : 46 

Elphinstone, Lord, 162 ; 

College, 194 

Eurasian, cp. Anglo-Indian 

Frere, Lady, 172 

Garga, 29 

Gokhale, G. K., 20, 24 
Gondal, Rani of, 15 
Government, system of education, 
22 ff. 



254 



Index 



^5S 



Goverment : attitude to female 
education, 37, 46, 64, 109, 130, 
156, 181, 193, 216 ; 

Female Education Com- 
mittee, 80 

Grant Medical College, 208 

Gujerati Stri Mandal, 17, 166, 
170 

Hastings, Lady, 36, 106 
Hindu, 15, 17, 30, 35, 39, 87, 

113, 143, 166 ff., 198, 230 
Hindu Female Training School, 

123 
Hostels, 85, 208, 211, 216 
Hyderabad, 15 1 

Ideals of Womanhood, 26, 

29, 113, 144, 216, 240 
Indian Church, 242 
Indian National Congress, 24 
Indian schools, 47, 66, 145, 167 
Inspectress, 41, 46, 95, 131, 151, 

156, 182, 246 
International Moral League, 229 
Isabella Thoburn School, 45, 
137, 194 

Jaipur, 154 

Ladies' Society for Female 

Native Education, 106 
Lawrence, Lord, 38 
Learned ladies, 31 ff. 
Lilavati Singh, 137, 201 
Literacy, 25, 63, 150, 165 
London Missionary Society, 152 
Ludhiana, 215 

Madras, 27,36,54,194,211,237 
Mahakali Pathshalas, 47, 84, 

113 ff-. 
Maharani's College, 194 
Mahommedan, 14, 17, 69, 82, 

89, III, 163, 171, 202, 229 
Maitreyi, 30 
Manu, Code of, 30 
Marathi, 179 
Marshman, Mrs, 103 



Medical students, 212 

Methodist Episcopal, 67 

Minto, Lord, 22 

Mission schools, 44, 50, 67, 93, 
103, 115, 137, 141, 151, 155, 
176, etc., 233 

Missionary Settlement for Uni- 
versity Women, 208 

Moral instruction, 223 ff. 

Municipal schools, 36, 87, 182 

Mysore, 151, 194 

Nasirabad, 156 

National Indian Association, 18 

Native States, 146, 195 

Nauraji, 165 

Neo-Hinduism, 133 

Nivedita, Sister, 21 

Normal schools, cp. Training 

Oxford Mission, 85 

Paranjpe, Principal, 238 
Parda : absence of, 163 ; 

introduction of system, 33 ; 

party, 18, 98 ; 

schools, 90, 113, 123, 135, 

158, 167 
Parsi, 17, 36, 164, 171 ff., 198 

235 
Poona, 167, 178, 181 
Prabhu Brahmans, 164 
Prarthana Samaj, 170? 241 

Queen Mary College, 143 

Rajputana, 153 

Ramabai, 180 

Rangoon, 67, 194 

Religious instruction, 225 ff. 

Results, 241 

Roman Catholic, 67, 117 

Sarah Tucker School, 45, 

194 
Secondary training, 58, 125, 

188 
Seva Sadan, 17 
Social life, 17, 207 



256 Education of Women of India 



Society for Propagation of the 

Gospel, 67, 142 
Sorabji, Cornelia, 200 

Lena, 89 

Mrs, 178 

Specialization, 219 

Stages of education, 51, 125, 

164 
Stipends, 198 
Students Literary and Scientific 

Society, 165 ff. 

Teachers, 57, 74, 96, 122, 185 
Training schools, 58, 75, 90, 93, 

118, 123, 142, 149, 157, 174, 

177 ff., 194 
Travancore, 152 
Trevandrum, 195 

United Free Church Mis- 
sion, 45, 118, 115, 179 



University, 192 ff. 
Unrest, political, 20, 208 

Welsh Presbyterians, 85 
Wesleyan, 139, 151 
Whyte, Miss, 118 
Widows, 58, 123, 149, 157 
Wilson College, 194, 199 
Wilson, Mrs, cp. Cook 
Wilson, Mrs Margaret, 35, 165, 

177 
Wilson, Miss, 187 
Women's colleges, 194 
University, 220 

Y.W.C.A., 96, 209, 211, 2x6 

Zenana Bible and Medical 

Mission, 37, 142, 178 
Zenana, cp. parda 



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